i^LlBRARY OF CONGRESS.^^ 



Chap. 



Shelf. 






UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



A 



MEMORIAL 



OF 



Louis Sandford Schuyler, \%sz-\<ii% 

PRIEST. 

»l 

VA TTENE IN PA CE, ALMA BE A TA E BELLA. 



NEW YORK : 
POTT, YOUNG & CO, 

MDCCCLXXIX. 



1 



y-^v 



A* 






46938 

—'•The best of men 
That e'er wore earth about Him was a sufferer— 
A soft, meek, patient, humble, tranquil spirit— 
The first true gentleman that ever breathed." 




Press of 

A mzi Pier son &* Co , 

Newark, N. J. 



FORD EXOHj^K.^., 



//Of 



PREFACE. • 

It has been said of our Communion that it could 
not be a true portion of the One, Catholic, and Apos- 
tolic Church, for it had not the Note of Sanctity. 
That it had at least fair semblances of others, was 
admitted; others, which it lacked, were perhaps not 
vital ; but this one, preeminent, necessary mark of a 
true Church of God, it neither had, nor seemed to 
have. And if to this were added that it seemed not 
to care for it, nor even to miss it, the statement might 
still have been, in a large way, and approximately, 
true. Accurately and destructively true of the Angli- 
can Church it never was. She has had her Saints in 
every generation. But, undoubtedly, in habit, for 
several centuries, the religious genius of English-speak- 
ing peoples has not tended toward very high expres- 
sion in personal holiness. This expression has been 
hindered naturally, by their ruling passion of independ- 
ence, their curious reserve, their intense practicalness 
which laid hold on things apparently nearest, and 
wrought that mighty task of political accomplishment, 
and enormous physical labour, which is a true and proper 



IV Preface. 

glory of our race — a work which seemed prepared 
and waiting for it, and which God permitted it to do. 

And as, in His marvellous processes which men call 
slow, seeing them out of relation to the Eternal Now, 
some things in time must seem to precede others, so 
even the spiritual nurture and practical religious in- 
struction of this English race, affected directly by 
these innate qualities and this preoccupation, and in- 
directly by them through interference of the State, 
have long reacted upon and heightened, rather than 
attempered them. Thus natural aptitudes, and envi- 
ronment, have kept dormant the immanent spiritual 
energy of a great people, and the religious life, in which 
its strong and high powers would find true development, 
and most noble exercise, has awaited the fubiess of time. 

Now, it appears to be the will of Almighty God to 
take away this reproach from us, and in an age which 
we have learned to call pecuUarly one of luxury, ir- 
reverence, and self-will, the idea of sacrifice, humility, 
obedience, arises newborn: in the day of tremendous 
physical achievement and material triumph— as though 
that work were finishing — it has pleased Him, in the 
revived life of His Church, to advance with equal foot 
the Supernatural Wonders of His Grace. *' Howbeit 
that was not first which is spiritual, but that which 



Preface. v 

is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual." 
The chief purpose of this Memorial is to show the 
revived life of the Church in the history of one of her 
members, whose own life, also, was not unique, but a 
figure and image of many Hves now daily offered in 
our Communion, which "go from strength to strength, 
and unto the God of gods appeareth every one of 
them in Sion." For the issue of saintliness is Saints 
— not vice-versa — and to know the virtue we must 
consider men. And, furthermore, as the Rector of 
Trinity Church, Boston, has just observed,* "popular 
skepticism being what it is, the main method of meet- 
ing it must be not an argument but a man; the Minister, 
in other words, who deals with unbelief most success- 
fully to-day will not be he who is most skilful in prov- 
ing truths or disproving errors, but he who is most 
powerful in strengthening faith in people's lives by the 
way in which the power of faith is uttered through his 
own character. * * * if unbelief comes not by 
the processes of logic, but by the power of Hfe, then 
it is through change of life that the reHef from unbelief 
must come, and change of Hfe comes by the power of 
truth, not abstract, but in and through character." 
There are other reasons why Louis Schuyler's life 

* Princeton Review, March, 1879, pp. 297-8. 



VI Preface. 

should be written. Natural affection would prompt 
it, with proud and sad regard. Gratitude of the warm- 
hearted people whom he helped in grievous trouble 
would prompt it. It is due to the whole Sacred Order 
of Priests, whose true vocation he illustrated, and 
whose high fellowship he more exalted. It is due to 
the great Order of Men, whose brother he is. But 
the most tender eulogy of him would be a sort of 
violence done to his sweet humility unless there were a 
true intent of serving God in it. Then he might even 

** Suffer himself to be desired, 
And not blush so to be admired. " 

Therefore the serious design of this history is not 
to celebrate a man, but the power of Divine Grace in 
him — to show how entirely feasible (though assuredly 
not easy) it is for one in our day, and in our Church, 
to live a life very like to that of Jesus Christ. And 
if it seem rather a startHng thing, and hardly reverent, 
to say of any man that he was much like Him, we 
must consider what a strange, pathetic sign of our 
essential /nreverence — and of the need of more such 
lives — that is, after Nineteen Centuries of Christianity ! 

It is simply and Hterally true of Schuyler that he fol- 
lowed very closely the Pattern of his Lord's life — 
nearest It when farthest from the usual ways of men. 



Preface, vii 

Being such a life, the story of it might well be left 
to teach its own lessons, without further comment here, 
yet three things shall be noticed. 

Schuyler's was no "fugitive and cloistered virtue, 
unexercised and unbreathed." His life was spent in 
the ordinary work of a Parish Minister, subject to the 
temptations of that lot, which his brethren know; I do 
not — ^let them say if they be not many. Had he 
been a recluse, or even had he joined the Brother- 
hood which he sought, and gained the support of a Com- 
munity-Life, something might be allowed for circum- 
stances, but as it is, nothing in him is beyond attain- 
ment by any in Holy Orders — at least, by any who choose 
to be of '* the hundred and forty and four thousand." 

Then, it is most instructive to note that his life, 
spent solely in unearthly labours, and for unearthly 
rewards, suddenly brought him, without thought of 
his, a high prize of earthly fame, in greater measure 
than is often meted to long lives devoted chiefly to 
acquiring it. Earthly fame he won in eminent degree. 
To Uve in all men's speech, and mind, and memories; 
to have one's name in all newspapers, with ardent 
praise ; to be celebrated in Sermons, Addresses, in 
formal Minutes and Records of enduring honour — even 
to have a Uttle book written about one, like this — 



VIII Preface. 

these all are parts of Fame. And they are all its 
parts — they are Fame. And this reward, for which 
many men strive with constant and intensest desire, 
came to Schuyler by the mere operation of his self-for- 
getfulness and self-effacement. His life of broken 
effort and apparent failmre issued even in this^ and 
became, even judged by worldly and temporal stan- 
dards, a success and a triumph. Seeking "first the 
kingdom of God, and His righteousness," this thing 
was added unto him. 

Finally, concerning the quality of Schuyler's deed at 
Memphis. — We know well the fierce joy which men 
have in pure courage. We know and exult in the 
plentifulness of that noble virtue — how it abounds in 
all human history. But we do not deeply consider the 
ignoble use we make of it, keeping it chiefly for con- 
quering savages, or riding Balaklava-fields. We esteem 
it a fine thing, though put to fatuous or futile employ- 
ment. Sometimes, as under stress of a great calamity, 
men Hft courage into higher use, and our hearts thrill 
with admiration when we see it employed in saving 
men's bodies instead of destroying them — ^when, as at 
Memphis, we see noble men and women — the fam- 
ous Howard Association, the Sisters, and hundreds of 
others unnamed and unknown by us — steadfastly brav- 



Preface. ix 

ing the horrors of pestilence, and calmly yielding up 
their lives that others may live. This we call " true 
courage"— with aglow of gratitude, beholding it divested 
of false lustre and shining with its own inward ray. 
But Schuyler, with his clarified vision seeing in what 
we call reaUties the actual phantasms, and discerning 
the true reaHties in spiritual things, lifted courage 
still higher, and used it neither for destroying men's 
bodies, nor for saving them, but to save their souls. 
This makes the supreme worth and value of his action 
— its teaching by example the great and needed 
lesson of the reality — the ^^vraie verite" — of the Su- 
pernatural, and the power of Faith. 

No preaching of the surpassing importance of spirit- 
ual concerns could ever reach men's hearts like his 
calm showing that men's souls are worth at least as 
much to save them as their bodies, and that there are 
those who deeply know and act on this. And it has 
been ordered that no criticism of his act can stand be- 
fore the known result of it. For Jesus Christ has 
said that the whole world is not a sufficient price for a 
single human soul, and by God's grace Louis Schuyler 
was permitted to save a man's soul in Memphis, and 
to know that he had done it. Fully believing our 
Lord's words, he counted not his life a dear price for 



X Preface, 

that one soul, and, unlike the young man " who made 
the great refusal," he parted with his "great pos- 
sessions" of youth, and life, and earthly love. Willing 
to "be perfect," he sold all that he had and gave to 
the poor, and went and followed Jesus. He shall 
have "treasure in heaven." And for us remains the 
Divine comment on his action: — "Whosoever w^ill 
save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his 
life for My sake and the Gospel's, the same shall 
save it." 

J. E. L. 
Newark, 
Mid-Lent, 
A. D. 1879. 




LIFE 



The idea of thy life shall sweetly creep 
Into my study of imagination. " 



OUIS SANDFORD SCHUYLER, son of 
the ReVd Montgomery Schuyler, D. D., and 
J Lydia E. Schuyler, was born into this world 
in the city of Buffalo, in New York, on the 2nd day 
of March, A. D. 1852. 

His remote ancestor, Philip Pieterse Van Schuyler, 
came to this country soon after the Dutch occupation 
from a town of Holland which in still more distant 
time had either taken or given the family name, and 
settled himself where is now the city of Albany. " The 
Flats " first occupied by him is still in the possession 
of the family, and must be one of the oldest home- 
steads in the country. There he married (Dec. 12th, 
1650) Margaretta Van Slechtenhorst, and after the 
fashion of those days begat sons and daughters in 
multitude. 

Their third son, Arent, married (Nov. 26, 1684) 
Jannetie Teller, and removed to the city of New 
York, having a country-seat on the Passaic River, in 



2 A Memorial of 

New Jersey, near to the village of Belleville. The 
mansion, commanding one of the loveliest reaches of 
this charming river, still remains, though greatly 
changed by succeeding owners. 

Casparus, the second son of Arent, who dropped 
the distinctive particle and gave its present form to 
the family name, settled at or near Burlington, N. J., 
where, in 1723, he married Mary Schuyler. He died 
in Burlington. His only son, Arent, passed his life in 
Burlington, where (May 19th, 1748) he married Jan- 
netie Van Wagenen. Their eldest son, Arent, had 
large estates at Pompton, N. J., and married (Oct. 
18, 1785) Hester Dey, only daughter of a gentleman 
whose seat was near to the present city of Paterson. 
At this gentleman's house General Washington was a 
frequent visitor, and her living descendants have often 
heard their grandmother speak of a dinner there, at 
which she presided, as the only lady present, with 
General Washington at her right. 

The eldest son of this marriage, Anthony Dey, was 
bom at a place then and now called Point Pleasant, 
on the Delaware, a little above Burlington. He mar- 
ried Sarah Ridge (Oct. 25th, 18 10). He engaged in 
business in Burlington and afterward in New York, 
but before the year 1820 was settled upon an estate 
on the bank of Seneca Lake, in the neighbourhood of 
Geneva, N. Y. 

His second son, Montgomery, was bom in the city 
of New York. He entered Geneva (now Hobart) 



Louis Sandford Schuyler, 3 

College, but was graduated at Union College, Schen- 
ectady. He married (Oct. 10, 1843) Lydia E., 
daughter of Nicholas J. Roosevelt, of Skaneateles, 
N. Y. 

Many lines of collateral descent have been equally 
enduring, and the family record of public and private 
virtue and manly service to society and the State is 
known of all men. 

Probably no man living cared less about mere social 
distinctions than the subject of this Memoir. Earthly 
attractions seemed not to touch him. He made him- 
self poor for Christ's sake, and was a companion of 
the poor. Yet, while he completely performed the 
duty exacted of all men by Chinese law — that by their 
own deeds they should ennoble the ancestors from 
whom they sprung — it is probable that he had a just 
esteem of ancestral worth, and took it for an inherit- 
ance in trust to him. 

Whether this be so, or not, the effect of much accu- 
mulated virtue showed in him, and it may have been 
a necessary preparation of him for the work he had to 
do, that other men should have wrought well. Per- 
haps many past deeds of modest, brave achievement 
matured his perfect courage, and long-forgotten self- 
denials occultly aided his sacrifice of himself. For 
though the ways of Almighty Power as observed by 
men seem sometimes devious, yet even the grace of 
God, ordinarily, follows the " line of least resistance." 

At the time of Louis Schuyler's birth his father was 



4 A Memorial of 

Rector of St. John's Church, Buffalo, and in that 
church Louis was baptized by the Rev'd Dr. Shelton, 
of Buffalo, April 4th, 1852. His mother died in 
October of the same year, and within a month after 
her death he suffered a very severe illness, from which 
he was almost miraculously restored; a kind lady 
of St. John's Parish watching him with a mother's 
care. But for some time after this he was a delicate 
child. 

In the month of September, 1854, his father re- 
signed St. John's, and, having been married a short 
time before, removed to St. Louis, Mo., where he took 
charge of Christ Church on the first day of October in 
that year. 

At the age of six years Louis was sent to a private 
school taught by a lady of the Parish. She has given 
her reminiscences of him as a bright, affectionate 
child, like all of that restless age at times mischievous, 
yet remarkably conscientious. It was her custom to 
give the children a lesson in the Catechism, to be 
recited on Fridays, and Louis never failed to remind 
her of this lesson, and was always prepared. Once 
after she had reproved him for some mischief she 
requested him to take a note to his father containing 
the quarterly school-bill. Louis at once frankly de- 
clared that he would not carry it if it said anything 
about his naughtiness. Even at that childish age he 
used to talk to her about his wish to be a Priest, and 
as he grew older the feeling only deepened, and it was 



Louis Sandford Schuyler, 5 

his abiding thought that there could be no other 
choice for him. 

These faint early traits are intensely characteristic 
— the sweet brightness, the transparent truthfulness, 
the passionate desire of holy things, the "hunger and 
thirst after righteousness." These, too, abided and 
deepened. 

Louis was confirmed by Bishop Hawks on Palm- 
Sunday, March 30th, 1866, when he had just passed 
the fourteenth anniversary of his birth-day, and he re- 
ceived his first Communion on Easter-Day, April 6th. 

His preparation for college was out of the usual 
course. Though but Httle over fourteen years of age, 
instead of doing as little work as possible, like many 
boys in that thoughtless time of life, no one could be 
more studious and diHgent. To save his father as 
much expense as possible he took entire charge of his 
horse and carriage, and drove him on his round of 
Parochial visits ; but under the seat of the carriage 
was always laid some book, which Louis eagerly 
studied while his father was making his visit. For an 
hour each day he attended an old Professor, and con- 
ducted the recitation himself by asking the teacher 
questions on all the points which he could not master, 
allowing no part of his studies to pass until he had 
searched it to the bottom. 

He entered the Freshman Class in Hobart College 
in the Autumn of 1867. He left college to return to 
his home at the close of the first term of the Senior 



6 A Memorial of 

year. While remaining at home he continued his 
studies, and was enabled to pass the closing examin- 
ation, and to be graduated with his class. 

The following letter belongs to this period : 

" Skaneateles, May 21, 187 1. 

" My Dear Father : * * * i am very 
much better, so much so that the Doctor says he can 
see no reason for my not returning to college and 
graduating if I will not work too hard, but take things 
easy. I feel and look very much better. I am mudi 
stronger since I came to Skaneateles, not two weeks 
ago. I have gained in that time twelve pounds. 
When I left St. Louis I was not at all strong, and very 
nervous. When I reached Geneva I was much weaker 
and still more nervous, on account of the long, tedious 
journey. I might, however, have improved by rest, 
but I went hard to work, and the circumstances were 
not pleasant or encouraging. The first night I went 
to my room I turned out the gas and went to bed. 
* * * * The gas is turned off when- 
ever the screw, or whatever it is called, is turned 
half-way— there is nothing to stop it. I turned it till 
it stopped, as is the case with all our fixtures at home, 
and in doing so turned on a full flood of gas, and 
slept in the room all night with that escaping. Had 
not the thought struck me (and it must have been 
dictated by God, as I had not the slightest idea that 
the gas was escaping) of opening the window, I should 
have been a corpse in the morning. Dr. E. said that 
that weakened my nervous system very much. 

" Though I only came here two weeks ago, you 
would not suppose I was the same person, so much flesh- 
ier, stronger and healthier. To-morrow I intend to go 



Louis Sandford Schuyler. 7 

back. P — has kindly offered to take me into his room 
till Commencement, If I can I shall go and see R — 
before Commencement, and afterwards start immedi- 
ately for St. Louis, unless you have changed your 
mind and decided to leave for the Summer. * * 
* * * q-j^g Doctor says I must not take a po- 
sition where I shall be kept in-doors all day. I think 
that Nashotah, if I can get the position, is altogether 
the best place for me, as after recitations are over I 
can take a good deal of exercise. To go on a farm 
would be all nonsense. I take no interest in farming, 
and finding nothing congenial in it, would be unhappy. 
The Faculty have been very kind to me. They will 
give me my degree if I am not able to work hard. 
Father, my sickness has done me a world of good, 
and I thank God for it. It proved to me how little 
we can depend upon ourselves \ for I thought I was 
well, and had arranged all my studies, so I could have 
no difficulty in passing my examinations. When I 
thought I was strongest, then I was truly weak. I 
can now see how weak and frail I am j but I also see, 
the more I depend upon God, the stronger I am. I 
shall make a much better clergyman. I could not 
read much while I was sick, but I read the Bible when 
I could read at all. I received such consolation, 
nothing could have done me more good. I opened 
first at the XII. chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews, 
and again at the II. chapter of St. Paul's Epistle to 
the Ephesians. What chapters could have been more 
consoling ? ' Whom the Lord loveth. He chasten- 
eth / ' And you hath He quickened, who were dead 
in trespasses and sins / * For by Grace are ye saved 
through Faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift 
of God ;' ' But now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes 
were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ.' 



8 A Memorial of 

The chapters are full of consolation, and it almost 
seemed as if they were picked out for me, as I did not 
look for them. 

" I did not know how I loved all at home until I was 
sick. Rev. Dr. R. called on me once and read prayers 
for me, and from that time I got better. My sickness 
has been better for me than years of health. I feel 
how dependent I am upon a Higher Power, and with 
God's help always intend to acknowledge that de- 
pendence, and live in accordance with such acknowl- 
edgment. I can appreciate the truth of Tennyson's 
idea of a clergyman, and of the good he can accom- 
plish, when, in the New Year's Eve, he says — 

*' ' He taught me all the mercy, 
For He showed me all my sin.' 

" I shall expect to hear from you soon. Give my 
love to mother and all the children. Write to me at 
Geneva, as I expect to go there to-morrow. 
" Believe me ever, dear father, 

" Your affectionate son, 

" Louis." 

Of Louis' college days the Rev'd Dr. James Ran- 
kine says: 

" He was in the college here during my incumbency 
as President, and I was very much interested in him, 
both on his father's account and on his own. I had 
some correspondence with him in regard to his com- 
pleting his college course and his devoting himself to 
the sacred calHng, but his letters have perished. Sev- 
eral times I had serious conferences with him in regard 
to the call to the Ministry — the obligations and the 
self-denial involved in so doing. The effect upon 
myself was a deep impression of his sincerity, con- 
scientiousness, and generosity and nobility of heart." 



Louis Sandford Schuyler, 9 

What is said by Louis' intimate companions in 
college attests the accuracy of Dr. Rankine's judg- 
ment, and may be contained in the words of one of 
them, who writes : 

" He was chiefly remarkable for one thing (a very 
unusual thing among students) — he faithfully endeav- 
oured to perform every duty incumbent upon him as a 
student and as a communicant of the Church." 

But, fortunately for the purposes of this Memoir, a 
record, made by a dear friend, full of detail and clear 
delineation, has been offered to illustrate this history, 
and will be freely used, here and hereafter. It speaks 
as follows of the College days, beginning in 1867 : — 

" When the Fall term began we took rooms to- 
gether, about a mile from the College. He had 
entered as a Freshman, and I was then a Sophomore. 
And at this time he joined the Secret Society of which 
I was a member — the Theta Delta Chi. He was a 
quiet, rather reserved person, with occasional flashes 
of talkativeness. He was decidedly more devotional 
than are most young men at that age, and I used to 
consider his evening devotions portentously long. He 
had very strong home feeUngs, and one of the sub- 
jects of which he never tired talking was his father. 
And I think he was quite miserable from homesick- 
ness a good share of his Freshman Year. He stood 
more than fairly in all his studies, but his especial 
favourite was Greek. In that I beUeve he ranked as 
high as anyone in his class. But he did not seem to 
care for College honours, and, I think, never contended 
for any prize, though all his friends wished him to try 
for the Greek Essay. 

" Though not the kind of man who leads in College 



10 A Memorial of 

politics, he was not devoid of interest in society and 
class matters, and was chosen Secretary of his class at 
the first election. At the same time he did not care 
near as much for College politics as I did, and we had 
frequent disagreements on the subject. He would 
accuse some of us of not being quite fair in our 
methods, and we would retort that he did not care 
enough about the results. * * * * 

The chief vices among CoUege students then were, 
what I suppose they always are, drinking, and what 
St. Paul calls aiaxpokoyia. From both these Louis 
was free, and in his freedom he was exceptional, for 
it was complete. There was nothing priggish about 
him on these points. He sang his song and drank 
his glass at our little suppers, but I never knew of his 
even verging upon excess, and his talk was always 
clean and pure. And in this he exerted a wholesome 
influence. 

" At the beginning of Louis' second and my third 
year we took different rooms in one of the College 
buildings. I think that Louis enjoyed his College Hfe 
much better after Freshman Year. His interest in all 
the matters of our little world increased, and while he 
lost none of his conscientiousness, he got rid of a cer- 
tain primness, and was less disposed than at first to 
make things indifferent matters of conscience. I find 
in the * Echo of the Seneca ' (our College Publication) 
for that year the following : 

*' * Whist Quartette. 

"*'7o a^t '71. 

« « M et S vs. S et C .' 

And it reminds me of many a pleasant evening. I 
find Louis' name also in the * Theta Delta Chi Quin- 
tette,' and in the * Sophomore Glee Club.' And 



Louis Sandford Schuyler. ii 

this suggests his love for music. How much musical 
ability he had I am not competent to say, but I know- 
that he worked hard at his music. It was either this 
year or the next that he used to practice on the piano- 
forte several hours a day. And it was partly because 
he wanted his spare time for music that he made no 
attempt to win College honours. He cared little for 
the common out-door sports, except saiHng. That 
he greatly hked. 

"In the Fall term of 1869 Louis and I took the 
same rooms in the College, and became chums. I 
look back on that year with much pleasure. We got 
along very harmoniously, and laid the foundations of 
a lasting friendship. We were both looking forward 
to the Holy Ministry, and our talk often took a theo- 
logical turn. But as neither of us knew much theology, 
our arguments, for we held different views, resulted in 
agreeing to disagree. And after awhile we concluded 
not to talk much upon religious matters. Louis' 
position then was what would be called High Church- 
manship, with a leaning toward RituaHsm. I recollect 
that he got hold of Dr. Ewer's ' Failure of Protestant- 
ism' and rejoiced in it. 

" In literature our tastes were congenial. We agreed 
in reckoning Thackeray the greatest of novelists, and 
'The Newcomes' his finest work. Louis also set a 
very high value upon ' Esmond,' which I rated much 
lower than 'Pendennis' or 'Vanity Fair,' and we had 
many animated discussions over our preferences. But 
not all Louis' reverence for Thackeray could induce 
him to grant any honour to Fielding, whom we both 
began to read on the credit of Thackeray's praises. 
Louis never finished his first volume. I used some- 
times to tease him by reading aloud Thackeray's 
praises of Fielding; but he never wavered, and re- 



12 A Memorial of 

garded Thackeray's criticism on this point as one 
looks at the sole frailty of a dear master. I remember 
well the triumph with which he read to me one day 
what Charlotte Bronte wrote on this matter : — ' They 
say he is like Fielding. * * * jjg resembles 
Fielding as an eagle does a vulture; Fielding could 
stoop on carrion, but Thackeray never does.' — Louis' 
favourite poet in those days was Shelley, and next to 
him came Tennyson, of whose 'St. Agnes' Eve' he 
was specially fond. But Thackeray was for him the 
great name in literature. And in this he never changed, 
for I remember discussing 'The Newcomes' with him, 
in our old fashion, a few days after he came back from 
England."— 

Here ends for the present this just, discriminating 
comment, and free reminiscence, so 

— "moving delicate, and full of life." 

In the Fall of 1871 Louis became a teacher in St. 
Paul's College, Palmyra, Mo., and remained in that 
position for a period of about two years, while prepar- 
ing for Holy Orders. He was an indefatigable student, 
and had a critical and extensive knowledge of Latin 
and Greek, which languages he continued to study 
with unabated vigour after he left college, that he 
might read the Fathers and Holy Scripture in the 
original tongues. Following this purpose, he began 
the study of Hebrew, and, as his teacher bears witness, 
made such remarkable progress in this study that in a 
short time he was able to continue without instruction. 

He was admitted a Candidate for Holy Orders Sept. 
19th, 1 87 1, just after he began his duties as Teacher. 



Louis Sandford Schuyler. 13 

These duties he most faithfully performed, and while 
it was the desire of his heart to be engrossed in theo- 
logical study, he never slighted preparation for his 
classes, nor failed to take his full share of the neces- 
sary care of the students out of study-hours. But late 
at night and early in the morning he was devoting 
himself to the preparation for his life-work. 

His whole course of study was pursued under these 
disadvantages. Yet when he came to be examined 
for Deacon's Orders he passed the three examinations 
for the Priesthood, and it was the testimony of the 
Examiners that in accuracy and breadth of knowledge 
of the various subjects required by the Canon, he sur- 
passed every Candidate who had ever been before 
them. 

Of Louis' Hfe at St. Paul's there is extant a judg- 
ment of high authority. The ReVd Dr. J. A. Wain- 
right, President of St. Paul's, has fixed the portrait of 
that time with firm and delicate touch — in calm and 
sober, but in glowing, tints. Dr. Wainright says : 

" I remember well my first impressions of him. He 
manifested that pecuHar kind of enthusiasm which be- 
longs only to men of highest endeavour, and which 
gives evidence of a character of no ordinary stamp — 
brave, manly, resolute, , and of delicate refinement. 
His connection with St. Paul's College extended over 
two consecutive years, during all of which time his 
devotion to the routine duties of the institution, and 
to his studies preparatory to his future profession was 
marked by a singular zeal and exactitude which, for 
the most part only distinguishes minds far more ma- 



14 A Memorial of 

ture than was his, and urged on by far greater expe- 
rience. 

*' While it is doubtless well to study men in general 
for the purpose of arriving at principles which underlie 
universal human action, yet it is only in the fewest 
number of characters presented for our investigation 
that we come into contact with that attractive power 
or element, that peculiar symmetry and beauty, which 
impels study of the man himself, not in search of gen- 
eral principles, but as the living example of a more 
perfect human realization. The mere presence of a 
lofty character stirs the being. We feel ourselves to 
be under the influence of a power which of itself gen- 
erates character, and from the study of which we do 
not simply gather material for the better management 
of the practical machinery of life, but at the same time 
catch a divine inspiration which does its holy work in 
the higher consciousness. My two years' intimate ac- 
quaintance and professional association with young 
Schuyler served but to impress upon my mind the 
conviction that his was a character thus suited for a 
model for study in and by itself, not because of any 
one trait, but because of its symmetrical whole. 

" Conscientiousness was one great secret of his man- 
hood. His faith in the Master was deep and fervent, 
and against everything which seemed to threaten it, or 
that practical life which only is its true exponent, he 
guarded himself with the most earnest scrupulosity. 
This spirit grew up with him, and strengthened as it 
grew. It attended him in the school-room no less 
than in the Church, at his devotions, and in all his 
social relations — everywhere. 

" In the two years during which we were associated 
together I never knew man, or boy, or servant, ever to 
think of him as intentionally capable of a fault. He 



Louis Sandford Schuyler. 15 

was known and felt by all to be an extraordinary — a 
pattern character. It was no one particular trait by 
which they were held, but by the whole beautiful and 
symmetrical manhood. He was noble in his thoughts 
— ^noble in his aspirations — noble in his ways and 
work. Taken all in all, as he appeared to me he was 
one of the best models — perhaps the best model, in a 
young man, of all that is good and noble and virtuous, 
that it has been my fortune to meet. I treasure his 
memory as I would treasure anything hallowing on my 
own personal character." 

Louis' strenuous labour done at St. Paul's was often 
in illness and weakness, greatly due to the over-work, 
and his correspondence of that time reflects periods 
of great nervous depression. Or, to speak truly, 
does not reflect them — it gives note of them — speaks 
of them, frankly, in the freedom of domestic confi- 
dences — but the natural cry of weariness and gloom is 
tempered with a constant sweet note of patience and 
holy resignation. At one of these seasons he says — 
" I often look at that black clerical coat of mine and 
nearly cry, as I hardly expect to be ever able to be a 
clergyman. My life now looks altogether dark before 
me. I know not what I can do. I feel, though from 
an altogether different cause, as Newman must have 
felt when he wrote those beautiful lines — 

*"Lead, Kindly Light,' &c. 

It may be I am to be tried by not being allowed to 
see my hopes realized — not being allowed to enter the 
Ministry — and yet it seems strange that our Lord 
would keep one away, when His Church stands so 
much in need of Ministers. Pray for me. Your 



1 6 A Memorial of 

prayers, joined with father's and mine, may enable me 
to say ' Thy will be done.' And yet it is my duty to 
use such means to recover my health as God places 
near me. If Dr. C. sees no hope then I must be 
resigned." 

This letter illustrates the whole development and 
transition period — the time of waiting and preparation. 
Even the careless eye may discern in it something far 
removed from the confused and irrational impatience 
of the ordinary boy of twenty, disturbed not more by 
the opening pageant of life than by his own unfold- 
ings of body and of mind — by turns frightened and 
confident, flushed with foretastes of impossible tri- 
umphs, suffused with potential virtues not to be, 
plunged in abysmal woe by failures never to be begun, 
centred in self. 

With the early maturity of his spiritual sense Louis 
had already found a centre outside of himself. " My 
life now looks altogether dark before me," — yet^ 
** * Lead, Kindly Light !' " " It may be that I am to 
be tried,"^i;<?/, "Pray for me !" it "may enable me to 
say, * Thy will be done.' " 

But the letter has a peculiar, deep and awful inter- 
est now, for we know it is the Leitmotiv announcing 
itself — the " leading- motive " of a noble Tragedy 
sounding in the Overture — the first intimation of 
heroic action, obscure and unrelated, then, but now 
significant beyond expression. And in the climax of 
it what solemn presaging of melodious grief — " // 
seems strange that our Lord would keep one away" / 



Louis Sandford Schuyler. 17 

The school-life ended with its second year, and 
Louis was ordained Deacon by Bishop Robertson, in 
Christ Church, St. Louis, on St. Matthew's Day, Sept. 
21, 1873, his father presenting him. It is still remem- 
bered that, as he knelt in snowy surplice, just at the 
moment when the Bishop laid his hands upon the 
bowed head, a broad beam of soft yellow light came 
through the coloured windows and rested like a halo 
upon it. On this day Louis preached his first Sermon. 

By the Bishop's appointment he was immediately 
assigned the care of two small Parishes, at Elleards- 
ville, and Oak Hill, in the suburbs of St. Louis. The 
churches are about four miles distant from each other 
and he walked to and fro, serving alternately morning 
and evening. His first service at Holy Innocents, 
Oak Hill, was on the Sixteenth Sunday after Trinity, 
Sept. 28th. His note is "Present 8 adults and 12 
children." His first service at St. James', EUeards- 
ville, was on the succeeding Sunday, Oct. 5th, and 
the note in this case is "15 persons present." Pre- 
cisely two months before his ordination Louis had 
been offered the Rectorship of a church in another 
city. The letter of invitation was flattering, and the 
simpHcity of the refusal is characteristic. It runs as 
follows — 

" I must acknowledge that I feel greatly compli- 
mented by the contents of your letter. As you say, 
the influence of your Rector would be felt through 
the whole State, and it is on this very account that 
you should be particular in the clergyman you secure, 



1 8 A Memorial of 

and hence it is that feeling my own inability to properly 
perform the duties that would devolve upon your Rec- 
tor, I respectfully decline to undertake the work. 
This result has been arrived at not only from my own 
idea but also from the advice of friends who are older 
and have had more experience than myself." 

In the care of his two Parishes Louis laboured inde- 
fatigably, spending days at each place, in visiting from 
house to house, gathering together people who had 
never known each other, and enlisting them in the 
work of the Church. At the close of the year at 
Elleardsville he had filled the church and presented a 
large class for Confirmation. His private notes of 
the services, which are continuous and minute, show 
the rapid growth in attendance on his ministrations, 
until in the latter half of the year the note is almost 
always " Large," or " Very large," or " Exceedingly 
large congregation." 

He had not been so successful at Oak Hill. The 
population there was in large part of miners, who 
were very careless in matters of religion, and time was 
required to win their confidence and to impress them 
with the conviction of his sincerity and earnestness in 
seeking their good. At this time he wrote — 

"I have made up my mind to give up Oak Hill 
when my year is out. I have done nothing here ; and 
a year ought to prove my ability or inabiUty to im- 
prove matters. If Elleardsville is not able to support 
me alone I shall take whatever place in the Diocese 
the Bishop may assign me. I cannot live in this way; 
in fact unless our Church can reach the poor and the 



Louis Sandford Schuyler. 19 

ignorant I hardly think it has the right ring about it." 
The people of Oak Hill thought differently, and the 
few men of means there determined to call him to 
take the charge of their Parish solely. This exact 
reversal of his own plan occurred. On Sept. 29th, 
1874, he received the call to the Rectorship of Holy 
Innocents, Oak Hill, and on the following 14th Deer, 
he resigned St. James', EUeardsville. 

A playful letter to his little sister, seven years old, 
who was his special favourite, and of whom he often 
spoke as his " little housekeeper," reflects his life at 
Oak Hill at this time. The date is Sept 4th, 1874. 

" It seems ever so long since I saw you last, and 
father tells me that you have not grown fat. I 
thought that while you were away from the city you 
would eat all the time, and come home red-cheeked 
and weigh ever so many pounds. I have been disap- 
pointed in this, but you are well, I hope. You ask 

me what kind of a time I had in S . I had a 

splendid time, and although I was only gone three 
weeks I gained eleven pounds. I got home in the 
hottest week of the season, and the heat took off a 
good deal of my flesh. Father got home last Satur- 
day morning and preached in his Church Sunday 
morning. After I got through with my service at 
EUeardsville I drove down to his Church after him 
and brought him out to my house. Father preached 
for me in the evening and stayed all night with me in 
my little house. Last Wednesday and yesterday I 
was at home with him, but shall not see him again 
for nearly a week. If the weather gets very hot I 
shall go in for him, and make him stay with me in the 



20 A Memorial of 

country for awhile. I wish the people would get him 
an Assistant, so he could build a house out here and 
live in the country. Don't you ? Then we could see 
each other every day. I thought I would leave Oak 
Hill, but the people do not want me to go. I guess 
I will stay. When you get home you must ride out 
to see the old Monk." 

Though the salary at Oak Hill was small he could 
live upon it, and he was willing to make the trial of 
another year. He occupied a little cottage of two 
rooms, and there, by himself, with his books ; with his 
hours for retirement, devotion, and study; and a full 
allowance of time given to visiting among the poor, 
the irreligious, and the ignorant, he was happy; for 
he soon began to see that his work was telling for 
good. He had his Bible-class for young and old, and 
the young men, in particular, began to gather about 
him, seeing that they had a friend who could sympa- 
thize with them and knew how to meet their doubts, 
and give them the instruction they needed. 

In the Autumn of 1874 typhoid fever prevailed 
among the poorer classes of his parishioners and he 
was unsparing in his devotion to the sick — not unfre- 
quently watching by sick-beds through the whole night 
to administer medicines when relatives and friends, 
from fear of contagion, had deserted the sufferer. A 
lady of the Parish relates the story of a child which 
Louis found lying sick in the room of a cabin in 
which its father had died. He felt assured of its 
death if it were confined in that poisonous atmosphere. 



Louis Sandford Schuyler. 21 

He applied to several of the neighbours to have the 
sufferer removed to their houses — but for some time 
without avail. At last he found a poor woman who 
was willing to open her house, but she had no bed — 
spreading a coverlet upon chairs as the most comfort- 
able provision that could be made. Louis could not 
consent to this, and went to one of his wealthy parish- 
ioners to secure a mattress and proper covering. The 
request was readily granted, but the man-servant could 
not be found. Louis procured a wheelbarrow and 
with his own hands conveyed the bed and bedding to 
the cabin, where the poor sufferer was comfortably 
provided for, and in due time was restored to health. 

The power of devotion like this could not fail, and 
the poor people began to flock around him, and the 
Church was filled. From this time his private notes 
of the Services and attendance, attest the success of 
his labours. From the humble beginning of *' 8 
adults and 1 2 children," the record is " Most excellent 
congregation" — "Crowded" — "Not room for one 
more" — "Large number of men" — "Church full, 
several not able to enter" — "Twenty or more out- 
side" — "32 received the Holy Communion" — "35 
received" — "52 received," — &c., &c. The young 
men and boys took an interest in the music, and every 
week met for practice. Very soon they had hearty, 
plain, music, in which the whole congregation could 
join. The next year Louis presented for Confirma- 
tion the largest class in the Diocese. The Bishop in 



22 A Memorial of 

his Address to the Diocese thus speaks — "I might 
have expected more results in some places, but in 
others the returns have been surprisingly large. Of 
these I may instance St. James' Church, Macon City, 
and the Church of the Holy Innocents, Oak Hill." 

The following extract is from a newspaper of the 
time: 

"On Sunday, April 25th, the Rt. Rev. Bishop 
Robertson confirmed thirty-two persons in the mis- 
sionary parish at Oak Hill, where but a few years 
ago church-going was the exception, not the rule, and 
where yet there is ample room for improvement. 

**0n the following Sunday the Rev. Dr. Schuyler, 
of Christ Church, administered the Holy Communion 
to fifty-seven persons. 

*'This result speaks volumes for the efforts of the 
young Rector of this Church, the Rev. Louis Schuy- 
ler, who by his earnestness, conscientious attention to 
the duties of his charge, and truly Christian character, 
has won the confidence, respect and esteem of the 
entire community." 

This story of successful work, with its apparent free 
play of native and acquired powers in a chosen field, 
its pure pleasure of efibrt, and just reward of well- 
earned praise, pictures achieved content and peaceful, 
happy days. 

And though so many outward seemings of men's 
lives belie the inward part, yet in this life, it would be 
thought, the outward visible sign and appearance, and 
the thing really to be signified, must be in strict 
accord. Yet during these days of steady diligence, in 



Louis Sandford Schuyler. 23 

which he was so helpful and comforting to others, 
Louis was himself sorely in need of help and comfort. 
In his College days he struggled with bodily weak- 
ness; at St. Paul's, mental depression increased the 
burden; and here, at Oak Hill, the sgnsitive spirit 
suffered in unison with mind and body. He con- 
ceived the gravest doubts touching the things which, 
of all other things, were dearest and most important 
to him, and it is quite certain that any possible form 
of affliction would have been counted light by him, as 
compared with the distress attending his perplexity 
over the vital question — " What is Truth?" Being a 
Teacher, not to know what to teach— not to know 
that he had not already taught wrongly — not to be 
siire that he had any right to teach — to think it possi- 
ble that his service was hostiHty, his obedience, revolt 
— to feel that his eyes might be "holden" not to know 
Jesus even in the Breaking of Bread, yet to fancy 
that he knew Him — not to be sure of the grace of 
any Sacrament — not to know that his own Offices 
were not impieties — to tremble over souls which he 
had won — let any man who has something of Schuy- 
ler in him say what all this means. No other can, — 
not the most flexible and sympathetic mind. 

Louis' own treatment of himself displayed the 
essential robustness of his nature. Doubtless it 
would have been often easier to give over the battle, 
and to rest on either side in assumed conviction and 
content, but his course was stern inquiry, joined to 



^4 ^ Memorial of 

manful diligence in what he had to do. The one 
day's duty, at least, lay straight before him, always. 
That he wrought out, utterly, and worked a double 
task therein. For after many days thus spent in trial 
and endeavour it pleased Almighty God to give His 
servant consolation, and on the heights of duty light 
came to him, and rest, and peace. 

Of this trial the Rev. Dr. Wainright says : 

— "The things that enter in to disturb the faith of 
many never came before him as difficulties. His 
faith in the Master as his Master seemed always to be 
hid away beyond the reach of difficulties. His per- 
plexities arose in regard to the how and the where his 
faith might best be realized. Those who plunge into 
things of the Spirit as most men plunge into things of 
the ordinary life where less hangs on the direction of 
mind and hand than on the impelling enthusiasm — 
such can hardly appreciate the difficulties which spring 
up in the mind of the more sensitive soul when it asks 
itself the question where does the Master bid me 
work — under what banner am I to fight, so that I 
may neither hinder nor mar the victory? It is not 
the getting of religion with which the lofty soul con- 
cerns itself. In the possession of the germs of faith 
its only question is where is the appointed school for 
its proper development? In other words, where is 
the Church, and what are the proper limits of its 
Authority ? These, and like questions never trouble 
men of mere surface convictions — but into the higher 
order of soul-culture they enter as the warp or the 
woof. It does make a difference with every such 
soul what it believes and it does make a difference 
with it where it believes. Herein, religiously, lay 



Louis Sandford Schuyler. 25 

young Schuyler's only trouble and how earnestly he 
struggled to find his rightful position all who knew 
him have long since learned". 

Another of Louis' friends says — "At one period of 
his early manhood he had a somewhat narrow and 
sectarian view of the Church, as a local and individual 
entity, practically limited to the AngHcan Communion, 
and bound as to doctrine and worship by the late tra- 
ditions of the reformation-period, or the still later and 
more corrupt precedents of the Georgian era. He 
was wont to identify many ancient Catholic doctrines 
with Romanism, and inclined to accept the judgment 
of those who sternly censured aught seemingly tending 
toward a higher esteem of the Church, her Ministry, 
Sacraments, and Worship. 

"But study and thought soon overcame this ten- 
dency. The reading of the Fathers opened his eyes 
to the truth that many doctrines and practices which 
he had before assumed to be identified with Roman- 
ism had been, on the contrary, for ages, the undisputed 
possessions of the Christian Church. The revulsion of 
feeling attendant upon the acceptance of these con- 
victions was radical. The ground of his early opinions 
seemed to be slipping from beneath his feet. Review- 
ing the history of his convictions, seeing that he had 
now to reject as inevitably false many things which he 
had held certainly true, the suggestion presented itself 
to him that perhaps, after all, the Roman Communion, 
which he perceived held many of the ancient doctrines, 
might be the true Church of Christ. The historic 
associations of the Roman Church, its arrogant claim 
to be the Mother and Mistress of Churches, its impres- 
sive external unity, the devotion of many of its spirit- 
ual writers, the self-denial and personal holiness of its 
Religious, the conciseness of its theology, all combined 



26 A Memorial of 

to impel a devoted spirit, ready to sacrifice itself upon 
the altar of duty, to break every tie and bond, and 
give itself in perfect submission to that authority which 
is ever waiting to claim and utilize the devotion of 
ardent souls. Even the faithful Church teaching which 
his wise father, a learned Presbyter, had given, was 
inadequate wholly to counteract the tide which bore 
him onward. 

" The strongest reactionary influence of all was the 
attitude of many in his own Communion. He was 
shocked at the constant denials of truths which had 
been for ages accepted by the universal Church of 
God, at hearing the sacred Ministry depreciated, the 
Sacraments degraded to empty forms, barren of grace 
and life, and those Clergy who would fain conform to 
the Primitive rule of doctrine and worship stigmatized 
as disloyal, before a multitude too ill-instructed to dis- 
tinguish Catholic truth and practice from Roman 
superstition and error. 

"The Revd. Dr. Schuyler, though deeply grieved at 
the condition of his son's mind, rightly judged that a 
full and wide discussion of the issues would be suffi- 
cient to make clear the path of duty to one anxious 
only for the truth, and with this conviction he advised 
his son to visit Racine College and confer with the 
accomplished theologian who presided at that seat of 
learning. This advice was immediately followed. In 
this conference it soon began to appear to Mr. Schuy- 
ler that all the doctrines of the undivided Church are 
maintained and defended by the ablest theologians of 
the AngHcan Communion, and are parts of that deposit 
of faith which that Communion holds in common with 
the rest of Christ's Church. The issue was Mr. Schuy- 
ler's entire conviction of the truly Catholic position of 
his own Church, and his resolution to maintain the 



Louis Sandford Schuyler. 27 

unchanged and unchangeable Faith within her borders. 
In this acceptance and action he felt that he was 
holding inexpugnable ground, and from the stand thus 
taken, though often saddened and discouraged by- 
contact with sectarianism in the Church, he never 
afterward varied." 

Of his conference with Louis the Revd. Dr. De 
Koven kindly made full notes for this Memoir, in the 
preparation of which he felt deep interest; and they 
are given entire, precisely as he wrote them. They 
are almost the very last work which God permitted 
him to do in health and strength; and some of his 
subsequent correspondence on the subject was feebly 
written in pencil from his bed of suffering. 

Humanly speaking, it was his salutary influence, 
joined to the wise paternal advice, that preserved 
Louis to the Church whose dear possession he is to- 
day. For the human assistance in this time of trial 
was by no means general or manifold. On the con- 
trary, some of his own household of faith had assured 
Louis that things which he knew to be marks of the 
Church of God were not to be found in the Com- 
munion to which he and they belonged. Fortunately 
it cannot be known how much of this method would 
have sufficed to convince him that the Church of his 
Baptism is a pretense, for the rude prescription of 
amputation as a remedy of all disorders found no 
favour with the better-accomplished and more humane 
physicians, and the malady which lack of attention, or 
of insight, or of knowledge, had dangerously height- 



28 A Memorial of 

ened, yielded, as it could only 5deld, to the gentle 
appliances of their rational and tender skill. 

Dr. De Koven says — 

"In February of 1875 he came to see me on serious 
and important business. The time is more vividly 
impressed upon my mind, because at that time in 
every Standing Committee, clergymen and laymen 
were discussing the soundness of my doctrinal views 
and in many cases condemning me unheard. It 
seemed like a curious comment upon the agitation 
and talk, the ignorance and prejudice which prevailed, 
that in the midst of it all, he should have come to me 
to help him in his great doubt and perplexity with 
regard to the claims of the Church of Rome. 

'' I found him at once gentle and firm, devout, simple- 
minded, full of earnest purpose, and bent only on 
following God's will, and in accepting the truth, even 
though it involved the sundering of many ties. 

" He had fallen into an error, which in matters of 
controversy is often the error of the generous heart. 
He was by far too ready to accept the statements 
made by clever controversialists on the Roman side, 
because they were against the cause to which his 
heart and affections were bound. He was afraid per- 
haps lest the love he bore his father, the ties of child- 
hood, the education he had received in the Church, 
might make him too partial a judge; and so some 
matters which would not bear the test of history, or of 
CathoUc testimony, seemed to him as more powerful 
arguments than they really were. 

" He felt too, that which has driven many a devout 
soul before now to the Church of Rome, namely, that 
while he beHeved with all his heart what he knew to 
be the doctrine of the Catholic Church in all ages — 



Louis Sandford Schuyler, 29 

(i) The necessity of submitting the individual will to 
the Authority of the Church; (2) the Sacramental life 
of the Church, and in especial the blessed doctrine of 
the Real Presence of our dear Lord in the Holy 
Eucharist; (3) the power and work of the Priesthood; 
(4) the necessity of a life of deep penitence, self- 
surrerfder and sacrifice ; (5) the Communion which exists 
between living and dead in the Body of Christ ; he 
nevertheless had heard much of that talk, which says, 
'if you believe such doctrines, you have no place in 
the Episcopal Church, you are Roman Catholic at 
heart, you ought to go where such things are allowed, 
not forbidden.' 

" I do not mean that this had been his peculiar mis- 
fortune, on the contrary from those nearest to him 
few ever had a more loving sympathy, but it was the 
talk of the day, the burden of Church newspapers, 
and just at that time especially prevalent. 

" Thus in his case as in that of many others, his 
very loyalty and honour and sincerity, and absence of 
guile, were made use of, to drive him away from the 
Church of his Baptism. It has been an argument 
alas too prevalent, and many a soul has been wounded 
thereby in the 'house of his friends.' 

" Besides meeting these two difficulties, there were 
two arguments which I felt it useful to mention 
to him: i. The question between the Church of 
England and Rome if at. all entered into is a difficult 
one. It involves many questions requiring the careful 
study of history, the investigation of ecclesiastical 
antiquity, the decisions of Councils, the testimony of 
the Fathers and similar points. A person by Baptism 
a member of the Church of England, or the American 
branch of it, by education and Providential guidance 
belonging to it, a Minister at its Altars, (he was at 



30 A Memorial of 

that time a Deacon), could not conscientiously aban- 
don the Church, unless the case were clearly proved 
against her. The presumption ought to be wholly in 
favour of the Church God had placed him in, and the 
case against her should be proved beyond a peradven- 
ture to make a son abandon his Mother. Mere diffi- 
culties should only be an incentive to fuller study, 
more earnest effort, and greater patience. I pointed 
out to him that as some one has said 'ten thousand 
difficulties do not make one doubt' Oftentimes the 
difficulties that one sees in regard to the position of 
the Church of England when duly considered, only 
strengthen her claims, and are an argument in her 
favour, and not against her. I therefore pressed upon 
him the duty of faithful obedience to the Church of 
which he was a Minister, until he had ceased to doubt, 
because he was certain the Church was wrong. In 
other words a man Providentially a member of our 
Church could not honestly abandon her, so long as he 
was in doubt about her. 2. I urged upon him what I 
beheve to be a profound moral law, which to neglect, 
is to do damage to anyone's character ; namely, that 
it is not right to abandon a Church of which one is a 
member, until one has wholly tried her spiritual privi- 
leges, honestly sought to live up to them, and found 
them lacking. To abandon any Church without hav- 
ing done this, would be in most cases to have followed 
not the leading of duty, but the influence of the 
neglect of it. People always under\^alue what they 
neglect. I especially urged this reason because in 
deeper realization of what the Church is, in the fuller 
understanding of her doctrine and practice, in the 
appreciation of her in her Catholic affirmations, rather 
than in her protest against Roman error, men are in 
this country in various stages. Some, too many I am 



^^-i 



Louis Sandford Schuyler. 31 

sure, have never been able to live up to the Catholic 
life the Church bids us live, because the opportunity- 
has not been given ; and others who have had the 
opportunity have neglected it. In the former case 
Rome has sometimes carried captive the noblest souls 
because they have thought that CathoHc practice was 
only to be found in her; and in the other, the poor 
and the feeble, and the unspiritual, have taken refuge 
in her because they have failed to serve God and 
to love Him, and to lead the Catholic life they might 
have led. 

" Hence two sorts of converts to Rome, those 
whom we ought never to lose, and those whom we 
lose only because they are no loss. 

" I felt from his account that he had never as yet 
fully lived up to the Catholic life of the Church, 
because he had not been able to embrace it fully, per- 
haps through no fault of his own. In some such 
arguments as these the day he spent with me was 
passed. 

" He was, I beHeve, greatly impressed by the consid- 
erations presented to him." 

The following letter from Louis to his Bishop is like 
him in its frank confessions and calm disavowal of any 
hidden apostasy. 

It is dated "Oak Hill, Feby. 27th, 1875"— a few 
days after the interview recounted by Dr. De Koven 
— and completes the record of this period of doubt 
and grief: 

" Rt. Rev. and Dear Bishop : Having heard that 
many false rumors are in circulation concerning myself, 
and knowing that some of them must have reached 
you, it seems but right for me to inform you of the 



32 A Memorial of 

truth. Of course any such notion as that I have been 
baptized in a Roman Catholic Church, or am a 
Roman CathoHc is false. How any such story could 
have arisen is to me a mystery. You know, however, 
that I have been in doubt as to the claims of that 
Church, and of the honesty of my remaining in oiu" 
Church with my belief concerning the Holy Com- 
munion. 

" Perhaps I might never have thought of the Papal 
claims, had I not discovered that my convictions of 
the Sacraments were in accordance (or 7iearly so) 
with what is authoritatively taught by the Roman 
Church. I found that the Greek Church in the 
Council of Bethlehem, A.D. 1672, had taken precisely 
the same view as the Roman Church. The Church 
of England, and our own Church, only, disputed the 
truth of their interpretation. Could I believe that 
God would allow two hundred and eighty millions of 
the three hundred and fifty millions to be in the 
wrong, especially when the seventy miUions were not 
at one, and had no definite doctrine on this subject. 
And it occurred to my mind that both the Roman 
and the Greek Communions were admitted by my 
Church to be part of the One Holy Catholic and 
Apostolic Church which we profess to believe in. Had 
my Church any claim to be the whole Church, or 
could it be asserted that it was without corruption ? 
There are some with whom the fact that there was a 
disagreement concerning the Sacraments would have 
but little weight. It may be my misfortune to lay too 
much stress upon our faith in this respect. However, 
that is neither here nor there. The knowledge that the 
Roman Church taught what appeared to me the truth 
on this point had too much weight with me. I 
seemed to forget the late dogma of infallibiHty in my 



Louis Sandford Schuyler. 33 

anxiety to be among those who might sympathize with 
me. I seemed to argue in this wise — and the fallacy 
is now apparent to myself — the Roman Church, even 
with the dogma of infallibiHty, is more CathoHc than 
our Church. I forgot for the time the Greek Church, 
without this Papal infallibiHty. I forgot also that it 
would hardly be right for me to leave a Church that I 
thought to be in the wrong to join another Church 
which I also believed to be at fault. This unreason- 
ableness, however, I endeavored to do away with by 
bringing myself to believe also in the infallibility of the 
Pope. All the Church History I had ever read went 
to favor its utter untruth. But the doctrine of devel- 
opment came to my aid. By forgetting the discord- 
ance evident in the interpretations of the Fathers — my 
mind being full of the idea that a verse might be 
entirely changed in meaning by the superior wisdom 
of the interpreters of to-day, /. ^., the developed wis- 
dom — I almost argued myself into a belief in Papal 
infallibility from the verses — ' Thou art Peter,' &c. — 
' Feed my sheep.' — ' I have prayed for thee.' For the 
moment I did not perceive that such a development 
did away with tradition. The strength of arguments 
afforded by the stand of the Greek Church from the 
beginning was also lost sight of for the time being. 
Then again in my hopes of finding certainty of doc- 
trine I lost sight of the fact that such development 
would be the foundation-stone of the greatest mtcQi- 
tainty — for what may not be made a dogma, to-mor- 
row, inasmuch as the right of making such dogma is 
now placed in the hand of one man ? I had beHeved 
in the infaUibility of the Church, represented by a 
General Council, but now in the Roman Church such 
infallibility has been placed in the Pope. 

" It seems utterly impossible to make such an idea 
agree with the history of the past. From these few 



34 ^ Memorial of 

pages, — though the sentences may only bring to light in 
an obscure manner the motive which first induced me 
to think of becoming a Roman Catholic, and the rea- 
son which now offers an unconquerable barrier to my 
going, — you may judge of my present position, viz., 
that I expect to remain in the Church in which I was 
bom, and in which through the Providence of God I 
have been called to the office of Deacon. I do this 
willingly, and believe I can work heartily because I 
have been convinced that I need not attempt to 
destroy my faith in the Sacrament, such a view being 
lawful. This note may show the working of — you 
may say — a weak mind, but you must confess of an 
honest mind. I suppose that I shall be judged, not 
by what may appear to be the truth to others, but 
what appears to be the truth to ourselves. I cannot 
help thinking that I have come to a right decision — at 
all events I could have come to no other in the 
knowledge I now have. Undoubtedly the love I bear 
my father prevented my acting at a time when per- 
haps otherwise I might have acted, but may not all 
this have happened in the Providence of God ? 

"I solemnly promise to confer with you — as my 
Bishop — if any doubt again troubles me, and such 
conference will of course take place before I allow 
such doubt to induce me to take any step." 

A letter to an intimate friend says — 

" The Roman Catholic gossip had some foundation. 
The only trouble was that they counted their chicken 
before he was hatched. Honestly, if Dr. De Koven's 
school of thought were not allowable in our Church I 
should have to leave, for I cannot believe otherwise. 
My mind is becoming more and more convinced that 
the old Catholic Faith is the only one that will supply, 
or claims to supply, what we expect from the Saviour." 



Louis Sandford Schuyler. 35 

For more than a year from this time no unusual 
circumstance disturbed the steady labour at Oak Hill, 
excepting only an invitation to a field of wider import- 
ance and greater outward consequence. The answer 
to this was as follows : (The date is "Aug. 31, 1875") 

"Your telegram reached me last evening and I 
take this — the first — opportunity of writing to you. I 
cannot be with you next Sunday, for the same reason 
that I declined last Sunday. I judge from your letter 
to me that my preaching would be considered upon 
^trialj and that by officiating I should put myself 
among the number of those who might be called 
seekers for the Rectorship. It may be prejudice on 
my part, but I could not make up my mind to do 
such a thing. I know that your intentions in asking 
this of me were of the kindest character and I thank 
you heartily for your kindness. When I received 
your letter the idea that there was a possibility of my 
obtaining a good Parish was so pleasant that for the 
time being I forgot my own unfitness for such a posi- 
tion and telegraphed an answer which would imply 
anything but dislike of the idea. But second sober 
thought and convictions of duty would incline me to 
change my mind completely. I do not feel as if I 
could take any step toward causing a favourable 
opinion of myself in your Parish, both because I know 
my own unfitness and also because the work I have 
under my charge at present is doing so well as to 
make me think it my duty to remain for some time 
with my little Parish. I am younger, I suppose, than 
you imagine, and have had but two years' experience 
in the Ministry, and even that experience has been 
gained in my present Parish among the very poor, 
and would be of but little assistance to me in such a 



3 6 A Memorial of 

Parish as yours. I cannot help feeling pleased by the 
thought that anyone should think so highly of me as 
to mention my name to you." 

On the First Sunday in Lent, March 5th, 1876, 
Louis was advanced to the Priesthood by the Bishop 
of Missouri, in Christ Church, St. Louis. His father 
presented him and the sermon was preached by the 
Rev. Dr. De Koven. He remained at Oak Hill 
through Lent, when, on account of impaired health 
arising from overwork — and suffering also from mala- 
rial fever — ^he relinquished his Parish and left for the 
East, having been invited by Bishop Doane to a post 
in the Cathedral at Albany. 

His resignation of the Oak Hill charge was the 
occasion of the following letter : 

" Parish of Holy Innocents, \ 

" Oak Hill, j 

" Louis S. Schuyler. 

" Rev'd & Dear Sir : The Committee of the Vestry 
to whom your letter of resignation was referred with 
the request to express to you in its acceptance the 
pain and deep regret of the entire Parish at the sunder- 
ing of the relation of Minister and people enforced by 
the condition of your health, really feel their inabiHty 
to properly set it forth. You came to us nearly three 
years ago and found the Parish without a Rector, and 
those best able to take an interest in its welfare living 
temporarily elsewhere. The attendance upon the 
Services of the Church had almost ceased. Struggling 
against this condition of affairs, and part of the time 
in ill-health, you persevered steadily, winning the 
respect, esteem, and love of all your people. Your 



Louis Sandford Schuyler. 37 

presentations for Confirmation have exceeded the 
aggregate of all before in the life of the Parish. 

"Your influence upon the younger people in the 
Parish for good has been most extended and its 
effects will be felt long after you have passed away. 

" Upon the older people no young man ever gained 
and held to such an extent their respect and affection 
growing, increasing, and continuing, during your stay. 

" Upon the occasion of your last service the spec- 
tacle was presented of a Pastor and his people in tears. 
You go from us with an earnest ^vish in every heart 
for your health, happiness, and success, wherever you 
may be called, and the hope that the time may come 
again when the Parish of Holy Innocents may be 
under your charge. 

"Very truly, 

G. W. Parker, 

" Chairman." 

His last service at Oak Hill was on Raster-Day, 
April 1 6th, 1876. 

He served in All Saints' Cathedral Chapel, at 
Albany, during May and June. The months of July 
and August were apparently spent in vacation. At 
least there was a change of scene — for his private 
notes show services in Christ Church, Pompton, and 
St. Paul's Church, Edgewater, (New Jersey) during 
July, and he was, in August, at Watkins, at Kinder- 
hook, and at Skaneateles (New York). 

The following note gives body and form to one of 
these visits : 

"For us both it was very pleasant. We strolled 
about the hills or boated on the Lake during the day 



^S A Memorial of 

or talked over our old topics in the evenings. Louis 
seemed to me to be growing more and more of a 
Mediaevalist in his theological views, but he had grown 
very gentle in asserting them. I gave him a copy of 
Keble's Sermons on the Baptismal Office, and also a 
volume of Newman's Sermons, and in return he gave 
me Aquinas' Sacrament of the Altar, of which he 
spoke highly as a devotional work." 

His health continued delicate. A letter to his 
mother dated August 3d, after mentioning illness, 
says: 

" I am better, now, however, than I have been for 
a long time, and in this climate expect to become 
stronger and healthier all the while. I do not think 
it would be right for me to return to St. Louis for a 
year or two ; perhaps then I may. I want to get set- 
tled and have a little home and try to help father. I 
try to be patient. Both my ill-health and my Church- 
manship have been against me thus far, and perhaps 
they will prevent my ever succeeding well. I would 
not worry so much if I thought father could afiford to 
count me as dead in so far as financial aid is con- 
cerned j but I do not believe he can, and I feel that 
he has a right to expect me to repay some of what he 
has paid out for me in the way of education." 

At the end of August Louis returned to Albany, 
and was assigned to duty at some neighbouring sta- 
tions of which he gives an account in a letter dated 
Octo. 15 th, as follows : 

*' You will notice from the heading that I am at 
Fonda, a Httle village on the New York Central R. R., 
about forty miles from Albany. It is a lovely place 
in the most beautiful part of the Mohawk Valley. 



Louis Sandford Schuyler. 39 

I can reach Albany in about an hour and can thus 
attend to my Canonical duties. My services, how- 
ever, are not only in Fonda, but also at two Mission 
Stations, — Canajoharie and Fort Plain. They run in 
the following order : One Sunday, morning and even- 
ing at Fonda. The next Sunday, morning at Fonda — 
afternoon, Canajoharie — evening, Fort Plain — three 
services and a journey of thirty miles. Pretty hard 
work, is it not ? You must also take into considera- 
tion the fact that I have to return to Fonda that 
night, and am not able to retire till the 'small hours' 
of Monday morning." 

In November of this year his father paid a short 
visit to Louis. He found his health in great measure 
restored and soon learned from conversation with him 
that his heart still clung fondly to his people at Oak 
Hill j and that he was receiving letters from all classes 
of his old Parishioners, begging him to return to them. 

The result of this given in the following letter, 
addressed to the same dear friend to whom the letter 
describing his work in the Mohawk Valley was writ- 
ten. The date is Nov. 2 2d, 1876 : 

" I have received a call to return to my old work at 
Oak Hill — and have accepted. * * * j feel go 
happy to think of again undertaking and being able 
to carry on my old work among the poor. Beside, 
my work there has unfitted me for parish work any- 
where else. * * * I shall have to fight against 
two things, i. ^., I am so sensitive that I shall imagine 
two things — first, that in the West the people will 
think I return because I did not obtain sufficiently 
pleasant work in the East, and second, that the people 



40 A Memorial of 

here will think that I have acted in a trifling man- 
ner in leaving so soon. But I have simply Missionary- 
work, and no parochial ties." 

In another letter of almost the same date he says : 

" My old Parish has called me back again. * * 
* Bishop Doane has written me that he does not 
want me on any account to leave his Diocese. I have 
lived so long in the West, however, — and as I can go 
back to my old Parish and old friends, and carry on 
the work begun there, I hardly think that I shall hesi- 
tate for a moment when the question of health may 
be decided." 

Bishop Doane's own characterization of Louis is 
that he was " a man of single-hearted devotion." 

On the First Sunday after the Epiphany, Jany. 7th, 
1877, Louis began again his work at Holy Innocents', 
Oak Hill. 

In a familiar letter dated on the 22nd of that month 
he excuses delay in writing and says — 

" I have called upon seventy families, beside writing 
sermons and having the regular Services. The people 
seem very glad to see me back and show their good 
will by regular attendance upon the Church Services 
and by coming in large numbers." 

Louis took up his duty with all his wonted energy 
and devotion. 

The Female Hospital, under the charge of the City 
Authorities, was about two miles from his house, and 
had no Chaplain, nor any regular religious ministra- 
tions. Louis therefore had a Service and preached 
there on Sunday afternoons, and Fridays he devoted to 



Louis Sandford Schuyler. 41 

visiting the sick in the wards after the Litany and a 
Lecture. He did a good work there, and his visits 
were looked-for with the deepest interest. At the 
same time he had Evening Prayer with Sermon during 
the week at St. Luke's Hospital, in the city, and, not 
content with a perfunctory service, he sought out 
individual cases, and was instrumental in engaging 
many of the patients in religious things. The Sisters 
at St. Luke's have the most affectionate and grateful 
remembrance of him. That his own people did not 
suffer, meanwhile, is clear from his diary and notes of 
official acts. His Lenten Services for 1877, for 
instance, are noted as follows — 

Cottage Lectures Tuesday evenings. Litany and 
Matins Wednesday mornings. Lecture Wednesday 
evenings. Evensong and Lecture Thursday evenings. 
Litany and Evensong Friday afternoons. Confirma- 
tion-class Friday evenings. Evensong on Saturdays. 
In the Holy- Week, two daily Services, with Celebra- 
tion on Maunday-Thursday, and the Three Hours' 
Agony preached on Good Friday. 

The following letter of May 20th, 1877, finds place 
here. It was written to a dear familiar friend : 

"This morning (Whitsun-Day) I shall offer the 
Holy Sacrifice and shall have you and your consecra- 
tion to the Priesthood specially in mind. I say 
consecration — for what is an Ordination but a conse- 
cration of our whole selves to God ? Next Sunday, 
at the time of your Ordination I shall also remember 
you. Neither shall there be any forgetfulness when 
the Ember- Day prayers are said. I know that the 



42 A Memorial of 

knowledge that these Eucharists are to be specially 
for you will bring great consolation. 

" Whatever else I might say would be rightly but of 
little consequence. God bless you ! " 

On the Second Sunday after Trinity, June loth, 
1877, Louis was at the Church of The Ascension in 
Chicago, in which Church a Mission was then preached 
by Brothers of the Order of St. John Evangelist. It 
has been thought that here he first conceived the idea 
of joining that Order, but it seems more probable that 
he had for some time nourished this purpose, and that 
his meeting of the Cowley Fathers simply hastened 
his conclusion, for it was but two days later when he 
wrote the following letter, addressed to the friend 
whose record of their College days has been quoted in 
an earlier part of this Memoir : 

" Your kindest of letters was duly received by me. 
* * * * Since my return I have had an exceed- 
ingly pleasant time. The people seemed delighted to 
have me back and have shown their satisfaction by 
filling ©ur little Church continually. Moreover they 
have borne very well several new notions {i. e. they 
seem new to them) on my part, — the wearing of alb 
and chasuble — weekly Celebration, early, and lighted 
candles. There was a Confirmation-class of seven 
adults, three of them lately baptized and all heads of 
families, presented a short time ago. * * * Nev- 
ertheless I expect to leave in the Fall, and go to 
England for two or three years of study and retire- 
ment, and then, if found worthy, become one of the 
Order of the Evangelist Fathers. All my thoughts 
have been tending that way and my theological 



Louis Sandford Schuyler. 43 

opinions will find sympathy among them. Their life 
is my ideal and I know that I should follow it. Now 
do not write me the most discouraging, lecturing sort 
of a letter imaginable. Either write me a congratu- 
latory letter, or let the subject alone." 

(His correspondent says that he did write a letter 
of congratulation and received a cheerful answer, 
which cannot now be found). 

It is certain that Louis gave to this subject long 
and prayerful deliberation. He consulted his father, 
who would greatly have preferred his remaining in a 
Parish, as he had shown himself admirably fitted for 
Parish work, and was most beloved by his people. 
But Louis seemed so fully convinced that the Lord 
had called him to a strictly religious life, and that he 
could thereby more fully consecrate himself to his 
beloved Master's service, having truly but one thought 
or purpose — to give himself wholly to his dear Lord 
— and though loving his parents, brothers, sisters and 
friends, yet willing to leave them all for the work to 
which he felt that he had been called — it was not in 
his father's heart to withhold his consent or refuse 
his blessing. Louis spent the Summer diligently in 
his Parish, remaining until after the close of the 
Diocesan Convention. His last Service at Oak Hill 
was on the Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity, Sept. 
23d, 1877. Upon Louis' second departure from Oak 
Hill his people again addressed him in the following 
tender letter of farewell : 



} 



44 -^ Memorial of 

*' Parish of The Holy Innocents, 
" Oak Hill. 
" Louis S. Schuyler. 

"Rev'd and Dear Sir: For the second time it 
devolves upon me, as Chairman of the Committee to 
whom was referred your letter of resignation, to 
express to you in its acceptance the profound regret 
of the Parish at having again to part with you, — their 
beloved and esteemed Rector — after so short a 
reunion. This time, fortunately, it is not ill-health 
that causes this severance of the relations of Pastor 
and People, but that at the call of what you believe 
to be a sacred duty you go forth to a wider and 
different field of labour. That your ministrations will 
be productive of great good in the future as they have 
been in our midst in the past is our earnest wish, and 
with prayers for your welfare and happiness wherever 
you may go, we bid you farewell. 

" Very truly yours, 

"G. W. Parker, 

"Chairman." 

The night on which he left his home for the last 
time can never be forgotten. Just as he was leaving 
the house he turned and said — " Father, I cannot go 
without your blessing" — and reverently knelt while 
that blessing, with choked utterance, was given. 

He sailed for England in the month of October. 
His early letters home were cheerful and restful, and 
he seemed to feel as if he had found his vocation. 

But after a brief space his health began to fail, and 
he went for a time to the Clergy House of Rest, at 
Malvern. The following letter is from there, and no 



Louis Sandford Schuyler. 45 

excuse will be offered for presenting the whole of its 
vivid detail. The date is Dec. 15, 1877 : 

" My Dearest Mother : You will notice from the 
heading of this letter that I am not at present at 
Cowley. The Father-Superior insisted on my taking 
a three weeks' rest. You can see from my hand- 
writing that my ordinarily bad chirography has become 
something abominable. The damp weather has had 
a very singular effect upon me. My right hand is so 
numb at times that I can scarcely use three of the 
fingers at all. You will have as much trouble in deci- 
phering this note as you would a schoolboy's of 
eleven, but I want you to hear from me, and I am 
going to write to-day, though I only promised to write 
once in two weeks ; and last Sunday I wrote to father. 
I am at lovely Malvern, staying at the Clergy House 
of Rest. I am the only invalid at present, however, 
and can have perfect quiet and rest. The clergyman 
in charge of the House is a delightful gentleman. 
Though away from Cowley, I am under obligations to 
say aU the Offices for the hours, and also have a fine 
of study mapped out for me ; so I cannot be said to 
be loafing, and the only advantage in the change is 
that of the cHmate. The air here is clear and bracings 
while at Oxford it is heavy and very moist. 

My day's work is as follows : 

5:30 A. M., Rise. 

5:50-6:15, Lauds. 

6:15-7:15, Meditation. 

7:15-7:30, Prime. 

8 A. M., Celebration of B. Sacrament. 

9 A. M, Breakfast. 
9:30-10:15, Matins and Terce. 
10:15-11:15, St. Augustine's Confessions. 



46 A Memorial of 

11:15-12:15, St. Chrysostom in Hebrew. 

12:15-12:30, Sext. 

1:30 p. M., Dinner. 

2:15-2:30, Nones. 

2:30-5, Walking. 

5:30-6:30, Reading. 

6:30-7:15, Even-Song, 

7:30, Tea — when I have time for study or general 
reading. 

9 P. M., Compline. 

10:30, Retire. 

"Every day is the same, and I love the very same- 
ness. I am within a ten minutes' walk of the most 
beautiful Church in the world, St. Leonard's, at New- 
land. Unless I am quite wrong it seems to me I can 
remember you speaking to me of this Church, and 
saying that Miss P. had been there. I remember 
your speaking of the fact that there was but one Sister 
there who composed the whole Order of S. Somebody 
or other. There is but one Sister here, but she be- 
longs to a large and influential Order, the St. Margaret 
Sisterhood of East Grinstead. There is only need of 
one Sister in the work, or there would be more. I have 
had the delightful pleasure of Celebrating there three 
mornings of this week. I can not describe the Church 
to you, but will only tell you some of the features in 
it that especially charm me, 

"In the first place, and rightly mentioned first 
because nearest the Altar, upon the Re-table, there is 
a large figure of our dear Crucified Saviour, with other 
figures representing those present at the Crucifixion. 
The work is perfect, and the representation perfect. 
Our Saviour's figure is almost life-size. Just before 
entering the choir, on one side, is a memorial of the 
Blessed Virgin's obedience^ and on the other. Eve's 



Louis Sandford Schuyler. 47 

disobedience. There are many other striking things in 
the Church. You may be sure you are remembered 
at the times I Celebrate, or attend the Holy Sacrifice. 
On my way down I stopped over a train at Worcester 
and saw the Cathedral. I spent two hours in the 
building, and walking around the Cloisters, and wished 
I had a whole day to devote to it. I shall not attempt 
to describe it. It is simply magnificent, though not 
considered by Englishmen one of the most beautiful of 
their Cathedrals. I shall probably be sent the last few 
days in Advent and for Christmas-Tide to preach and 
assist a Priest living in a village some little distance 
from here, and to reach his place, I shall pass through 
Hereford, and see the most beautiful of all Cathedrals. 
" The ivy-leaf I enclose is for father, and was picked 
by me from one of the walls of the Cathedral at 
Worcester. I forgot to say that the Crucifixion in 
Newland is not a painting but a piece of carved work- 
manship. To-day (Dec. 15) the roses are in full 
bloom, not only in greenhouses but out of doors in 
the garden. I can open the windows of the room in 
which I am sitting, and pluck any number of beauti- 
ful roses. Other flowers are also in bloom. The 
holly is perfectly charming. I can not attempt to 
give you any idea of the beauty of this place. In the 
morning after Celebrating in this heavenly Church, 
having offered the Holy Sacrifice and having partaken 
of the Divine Humanity of our Saviour, walking 
towards the house I lift up my eyes, and find the Mal- 
vern Hills bathed in a light that must borrow some of 
its tints from Heaven, for its very brightness melts me 
almost to tears, and I think of the True Light. My Hfe 
is very happy. I seem to be very near our Jesus ; 
though how He can approach me, so sinful as I am, or 
how He can call me to follow Him, I often wonder. 



48 A Memorial of 

" In the afternoon I wander over the hills, but on 
account of my weakness I have not yet reached their 
tops. I want to tell Gertie and Sophie and Pat, 
what I saw the other day. Walking along the street 
I looked up, and there was trotting along near me a 
little donkey — there are ever so many of them here. 
I never remember seeing any in America except per- 
haps at a circus. Well, the donkey was not all I saw. 
A nurse was leading the Httle fellow, and in some way 
two baskets were fastened on his back, one hanging 
over one side, and the other hanging over the other 
side, and in the baskets were two little babies, one 
dressed with a blue cap and cloak, and the other with 
red cap and cloak. The whole affair was quite pic- 
turesque. I know if Phil, were walking with me 
I should have some trouble in keeping him from fight- 
ing battles for me. Not only children laugh at my 
habit, but even grown people show their disgust and 
hatred. But they do not know what it means, and 
there is One ever near, whose opinion I care more for 
than for theirs. While wandering over the hills 
I picked some ferns, which I shall enclose either in 
this letter, or in my next — also some flowers picked in 
the garden (not hot-house, but in the open air) only a 
day or two ago. These will let you know that I think 
of you very often. How I do wish that you and 
father might come over for a time. I am so very 
happy in my life and so glad I had the strength to 
bear the terrible wrench that it cost me to leave my 
home and friends, and give myself up to the Religious 
Life. In my cell I still retain the little picture you 
gave me, also Rodriguez, and my Prayer Book, that 
you and father gave me at my Confirmation. 

"Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all. 
"Aff'tly and devotedly your 

*' Louis." 



Louis Sandford Schuyler, 49 

Though rest and change of air brought some refresh- 
ment and renewed strength, it became apparent to 
Louis and to Father Benson, on whose judgment and 
the matured opinion of a competent Physician Louis 
impHcitly relied, that his cherished plan of life must 
be given up. 

There is no record and no suspicion that his sweet 
patience failed in this sore trial of it. The following 
letter from on board the "Batavia," coming on shore, 
is a clear reflection of his mind. The date is Jany. 
23d, 1878: 

" Dear, darling Father : To-morrow we shall reach 
New York. Father Benson advises me to give up all 
thought of the religious life for the present at any rate. 
I gave way entirely in the Retreat and for several 
days was quite broken down. The life is very severe, 
and the cHmate of England did not agree with me. 

" I have the satisfaction of knowing that at the time 
Christ called me to give up all and follow Him, I did 
leave my friends and home and all. Now He calls 
me still to follow Him, but to work for His poor. 

"Father, I do not expect I shall live long, and 
would like to give up the remainder of my life to 
Christ's poor. I expect to live an unmarried life — 
indeed I have bound myself for a time to the unmar- 
ried state, and it was only because I was advised not 
to do so that I was kept from making it a life-vow. 
When I get perfectly strong and well I shall take a 
vow in your Church where I was ordained both Dea- 
con and Priest. God indeed grants me consolation 
at this time (when I am about to give up that life to 
which I had thought myself called) by again allowing 
me to work near you and the dear ones at home. 



50 A Memorial of 

God is ever merciful to me and blesses me more than 
I deserve. I feel especially near Him and our 
Saviour Jesus. I know that in whatever way my life 
is mapped out for me it will be in accordance with 
God's will. It has occurred to me to try and form 
a Society of young American Priests to be called " The 
Society of the Sons of Jesus " but whether God will 
give me strength to carry out this intention I know 
not. I have gained wonderfully by this sea-voyage. 
I feel quite a different man from the one who came 
aboard ship at Liverpool. I shall soon be able to be 
at work again, though I have the belief that it will not 
be for a long time. 

*' May we meet very, very soon. God bless you all. 
" Your most aff't. son 

"Louis." 

The following letter of the Rev. Arthur C. A. Hall 
aptly sums up the history of Louis' connection with the 
Brotherhood of St. John Evangelist : . 

" I first met Louis Schuyler in June, 1877. Father 
Maturin and I were preaching a Mission at Chicago, 
in the Church of The Ascension. Schuyler came 
from St. Louis, where he had a small parochial charge, 
and spent the greater part of the twelve days with us. 
He had long been desirous, from a boy I think, to 
give himself up to a life of entire dedication to our 
Lord and His Church, in a closer and stricter way, 
I mean, than is necessarily involved in the Sacred 
Ministry. It was, I think, chiefly on account of this 
desire that the Roman Church, with its numerous 
Religious Orders, had presented great attractions to 
him. He had not thought of a life of Religious dedi- 
cation, in obedience to our Lord's Counsels of Perfec- 
tion, as being practicable for him in our Communion. 



Louis Safidford Schuyler. 51 

He yearned, too, for more freedom and elasticity in 
teadiing and working, than our Parochial system ordi- 
narily allows. In a Brotherhood of Mission-Priests 
he thought he would find (and had his health been 
stronger I doubt not he would have found) a sphere 
at once for the realization of his spiritual aspirations 
and for the exercise of his Missionary zeal. So 
strongly did he feel impressed with this vocation that 
at the end of the Mission he resolved to offer himself 
as a Postulant to our Society as soon as the way 
should be open to him. The way was opened sooner 
than he had ventured to expect, by his father's pious 
and trustful consent to his plans. The sacrifice of 
parting from his father was keenly felt by Louis, and 
nothing, I am sure, but a clear conviction that he was 
acting in obedience to a higher than any earthly claim 
would have induced him to face the separation. But 
he would not offer to the Lord of that which cost him 
nothing. The same spirit of reality in self-sacrifice 
was shown in his preparations for going to England, 
when he parted with all but what was necessary, in 
order to meet his travelling expenses. In September 
he went to England, to the Mother-House of our 
Society, at Cowley St. John, Oxford, wdth the hope of 
being admitted to the Noviciate after a short time. 
But it proved that his health was not strong enough. 
In fact the sword was too keen for the scabbard \ and 
the scabbard had not been properly cared for. Before 
he came to us, while he was working alone and trying 
to work out things by himself, he had, I fancy, been 
indiscreet in ascetic practices, which had overtaxed 
his physical and nervous strength; so that he was 
really unequal to the exercises of Community-Life. 
The disappointment of being obliged to return to this 
country after a few months must have been severe. 



52 A Memorial of 

It pleased Almighty God to accept the oflfering of his 
life in a different manner. 

" But the lesson remains for the Church, wisely to 
make provision for such ardent souls ; neither to repel 
them by indifference, nor in fear or jealousy to cramp 
them with fetters or restraints ; but lovingly to wel- 
come and guide their enthusiasm and devotion. They 
would be Apostolic in life as well as in doctrine. 
The Church surely has need of their prayers and 
labours, and they of her guidance and sympathy." 

When Louis reached his brother's house in New 
York his brother was shocked at his appearance — so 
thin, and worn, and wan, and feeble in his step. He 
remained for two months at his brother's house, the 
object of the tenderest care and devotion, watched in 
his diet and his exercise, and comforted with unfailing 
love. The following letter reports the consequence of 
this affectionate solicitude. The date is March 27th, 
1878: 

" The two months that I have been in New York 
have done me worlds of good. In fact everybody tells 
me that I do not look like the same person. I have 
passed through a great deal and thank God very 
heartily for the trial, though it seemed hard indeed to 
bear. The Rev. Mr. S. of Hoboken has told me 
very plainly that I had better not attempt to work 
there unless I am perfectly strong and well. He can't 
afford to have a half-well man, neither will the work 
to be done there admit of a sick man's attempting it. 
I am therefore looking for lighter work, but cannot 
yet tell whether I shall find it here or not. * * * 
Last Monday (the Feast of the Annunciation of the 
Blessed Virgin Mary) was a specially joyous day to 



Louis Safidford Schuyler. 53 

me, as that Festival, to my mind, is one possessing 
the very loveliest charms. I offered the Holy Sacri- 
fice that morning at St. Mary's, a Hospital under 
the charge of the Sisters of St. Mary. To-day I 
attended a service very touching indeed — " The Sta- 
tions of the Cross." Next Monday I shall again Cele- 
brate at the Hospital. The Feast of the Annunciation 
is one which should be kept with great joy, and the 
Octave too, but it hardly seems consistent with the 
character of the Lenten Season to take eight days 
away from the forty which should be given to fasting. 
This does not seem altogether like Lent to me, as 
Father B. has strictly forbidden my fasting — his 
words in a letter were, " do absolutely nothing in the 
way of fasting." On Saturdays I Celebrate at another 
Chapel of the Sisters of St. Mary. * * * My very 
best love to all. 

" Your very afif't son, 

" Louis." 

The reference to " the ReVd Mr. S. of Hoboken " 
shows how soon Louis was wanted for fresh labours, 
and how little of rest and recreation he purposed for 
himself. The Rev'd John Sword writes — 

" I asked Louis to come here immediately after his 
return from England, early in February, I think. He 
thought he would be well enough by May ist. But 
when May ist came his coming was indefinitely post- 
poned, though not abandoned. It was thought he 
had better first take some Hghter work. I told him 
I would try to spare him all I could, but he would be 
sure to find more work than the strongest of men 
could do, and finding it to be done I feared he would 
try to do it. 



54 A Memorial of 

"When he was asked to go to The House of 
Prayer it was agreed that he should try his strength 
there, and after a month report to me. In August it 
was definitely settled that he should come on Sep- 
tember I St." 

There is in existence a very gentle, loving, beautiful 
letter, relating to this time, written by a lady to the 
Rev'd Dr. Schuyler, and by him now dearly treasured. 
All of it that concerns this Memoir is here given : 

"After his return from England we first met Louis 
at his brother's house in New York, where he wel- 
comed us most cordially and made an appointment to 
visit us and talk with me on some theological subjects. 
He came at an early hour. * * * \Ve entered 
upon a conversation which became a part of my soul- 
life and which I shall carry with me through the 
earthly pilgrimage, into the Beyond. He talked of 
God's love to us and our love for our Heavenly 
Father, — of the partaking of the Blessed Sacrament, 
and the preparation to be made before presuming ' to 
eat of that Bread and drink of that Cup '. He spoke 
of his life in England, and gave several incidents that 
had occurred there. Of his entire faith in God's good- 
ness and his longing to live the highest, truest life for 
God and his fellow-beings. Of his determination to 
deny himself all but the necessaries of life, in order to 
devote his salary to the good and comfort of others. 
He spoke most lovingly of the home-circle and 
expressed his earnest desire to visit them all, but said 
he must wait and have patience — as he felt that the 
proper time for doing so had not yet come and he 
must not allow his inclinations to guide his judgment. 
He asked after various members of his family, and 
said that his reverence and deep appreciation of his 



Louis Sandford Schuyler. 55 

father's goodness and Christian life were such that he 
considered him one of the best of men, so that he 
longed always to do what he thought right. He men- 
tioned the little ones at home several times with 
tenderest affection, and spoke of his wish to deny 
himself every luxury in order that he might personally 
advance their pleasure and improvement. He referred 
to the great kindness and attention he had received 
from his brother and sister (in whose house he was 
then sta)dng) in words of earnest appreciation. 

" He spoke, too, of the deep things of the Gospel, 
of religion, and unquestioning faith, of the beauty and 
satisfaction of an inner life of holiness, of the necessity 
of obedience to God's laws, and of the peace of such 
self-surrender, — until I looked upon his rapt counte- 
nance with awe and amazement, for the light upon 
his face seemed inspiration. 

" Those hours of spiritual converse and instruction 
were golden hours to me. He remained to luncheon, 
and said it was like a visit home again. Later we 
asked him for some music, and for more than an hour 
he spoke to us in Beethoven's Sonatas and Mendels- 
sohn's ' Songs without Words '. Upon our asking for 
a repetition each time we valued the interpretation 
more. A Largo of Handel he seemed especially to 
enjoy, and this led to a conversation on organ-music 
which was very interesting to us. He seemed to be 
able to read classical composition at sight, and on my 
expressing my surprise at not having known before 
that he possessed so rare a gift, he answered, with the 
humility of a Httle child — ' Did you not know ? I do 
not pretend to anything especial in music, but it is 
a great pleasure to me to hear it, and to play, if I can 
give pleasure to others.' He gave us an exquisite 
rendering of Mendelssohn's ' Consolation,' and I can 



56 A Memorial of 

never again listen to those strains of melody, so full 
of pathos, without recalling to my mind the picture of 
that day. 

'* He spoke of his pleasure in anticipating his work 
which awaited him in the Church of The Holy Inno- 
cents in Hoboken, and seemed eager to renew his 
priestly labours. Before he left us he travelled in 
memory over past years, even to his childhood, and 
said it seemed so strange that he should have counsel 
sought from him by those who had known him in his 
infancy. I told him of my first impressions of him 
when his curly head could scarcely be seen above the 
pew of Christ Church, he was so young a worshipper. 
Yet he had remained always perfectly quiet and his 
great, earnest, questioning eyes were always riveted on 
your countenance when you were ministering at the 
Altar, while the spiritual face of the tiny child was not 
more strongly indicative of the 'pure in heart' than 
was the holy countenance of the young Priest of God 
when I looked upon it for the last time on this earth, 
as we spoke our words of farewell. 

" Truly that was a ' white day ' in my memory, and 
when I thought on the gentleness, the strength, the 
unselfishness, the goodness, the entire uplifting of soul, 
the living in the very presence of our Lord, the wis- 
dom and the bravery, the purity and the humility of 
the life it had been my blessed privilege to know, 
I felt that all the world was better, and that I had 
truly been with one of God's Saints — a man in the 
world, but not of it — a servant of Jesus Christ and 
'filled va\h the Holy Ghost.'" 

The reference to Louis' musical accomplishment 
makes it proper to say that many persons who knew 
him well were ignorant of it — so great was his reserve 
touching any talent or acquirement of his own. A gen- 



Louis Sandf or d Schuyler. 57 

tleman who was much with him, — who is, himself, 
ardently fond of good music, and likely to know if his 
friends are so, — affirms that until he read the foregoing 
letter he had never fancied that Louis knew anything 
whatever of music. 

At Easter Louis was considering a request to take 
temporary charge of the Parish at South Amboy, N. J., 
but the Rector of The House of Prayer, in Newark, 
being compelled to seek recruitment of impaired health 
in another climate, urgently desired him to occupy 
that place during the Summer, and Louis, considering 
only where he might most be needed and be of the 
greatest service, accepted the latter charge, at con- 
siderable pecuniary loss. Meantime, as the departure 
of the Rev. Mr. Goodwin was delayed until June 19th, 
Louis served in Grace Church, in Newark, during a 
brief absence of the Rector thereof, from the 20th of 
May until about the middle of June, when he took 
charge of the Parish of The House of Prayer. 

What he was to that Parish, and to individual souls 
in it, will never be wholly known until the secrets of 
all hearts shall be revealed. Something of it will 
appear, here and hereafter, during the course of this 
Memoir. 

The following letter places him at the beginning of 
his work there : 

"Rectory of The House of Prayer,) 
"Newark, June 21st, 1878. j 
" My dear Father : I have been quite busily occupied 
and it did not seem possible that so long a time had 



58 A Memorial of 

elapsed since I wrote to you. For three weeks I was 
at Grace Church, while Dr. Harison was away, but 
now I have come to The House of Prayer for two or 
three months. 

" Mr. Goodwin has gone to England, and will not 
probably be back before September. Should he come 
sooner I should be very glad, for I have accepted 
permanent work, and shall go to it just as soon as I 
am free from my engagement here. 

" I shall not have more than I can live upon, but 
until you have absolute need of my assistance I feel 
that I must obey God's call and give my strength and 
time to work amongst His poor. 

"I shall be an assistant in the Parish of The Holy 
Innocents, Hoboken. 

" My best love to all. 

" Your aff 't son, 

"Louis." 

The following letter shows him looking forward to 
his permanent work and anxious for its sake. This 
anxiety is tempered, too, with sweet human affection 
and innocent desires of friendship — the whole so ruled 
by a sober and devout will that it is a dear likeness of 
the man. The letter was written to a familiar friend, 
in Holy Orders. The date is July 5th : 

" My very dear Brother : I was very happy indeed 
to receive your letter, for it gives me hopes of your 
coming. It is not well, however, to urge personal 
feehngs of friendship, because we should judge accord- 
ing to what is plainly our duty. Do not, however, 
choose a work simply because it seems to be the least 
pleasant in its surroundings, for God gives us plenty 
of opportunities to deny ourselves even when we 



Louis Sandford Schuyler. 59 

expect greater comforts. St. Thomas a Kempis says 
that we cannot go anywhere where there will not be a 
cross for us to bear. Please, therefore, do not allow 
anything to keep you from us if you find it possible to 
think that God allows you to come. I know it would 
be the life you long for, and on that account am I 
principally afraid you will not come — because you 
might think that you should not gratify this longing, 
and should choose work less congenial. * * * 
I know, however, that you will alone be guided by 
what your conscience dictates, and shall pray that, if 
possible, God will make it plain (if it be His will) that 
you may be of great service in carrying out the work 
at Holy Innocents. ***** And if you 
come bring with you the banner — or one like it — ^we 
all so admired — the work of one of your sisters — the 
banner of the Holy Innocents' Class. * * * 
Tell your mother that you will be well cared for at 
Hoboken, because we are going to use judgment in 
regard to our living. Do come. I pray that it may 
be God's will. 

" Ever your afFt Brother, 

"Louis S. Schuyler." 

The following letter is the sequel. The reference, 
in both, to a certain bann^, is preserved for reasons 
which will appear to a careful reader : 

"Rectory of The House of Prayer,'! 
"Newark, July 28th, 1878. J 

" My dear Brother : Your letter was duly received. 
I had not allowed myself to count too much upon your 
coming, but tried to commit the whole matter into 
God's Handi Therefore I was not sadly disappoint- 
ed as I should have been if I had allowed my natural 
feelings to guide me. You have decided under good 



6o A Memorial of 

advisers and after prayerful thought, and I know Got) 
has been with you. Who may be the third man at 
Holy Innocents I do not know. * * * xhe hope 
has been cherished by me that the thought that you 
imagined your sister had in mind may be reaHzed, for 
that banner was so very, very appropriate in its con- 
ception and so very beautiful in its finish. Mr. Betts 
was with me last Sunday evening. He will be over 
some time next month to stay a day or two. Remem- 
ber me kindly to all at your father's when you write to 
them. We may find our lot cast in the same work 
(D. V.) some day. 

" Believe me ever 

" Your very aff 't Brother, 

" Louis S. Schuyler." 

Louis' Sermons were quiet, simple, meditative. 
They were very real and direct, because he never 
spoke for any effect not proceeding from some true 
and efficient cause. He saw with the inward eye of 
Faith, and well discerned, therefore, evidence of things 
otherwise unseen. The following portion of a Sermon 
is a fit illustration of his preaching. It is upon " The 
Communion of Saints "—-from St. Luke xv. 7 — "/ 
say unto you that likewise joy shall be in heaven over 
one sinner that repenteth :" 

Speaking of the ^* Dead in Christ," he asks — " How 
then have they gone from us ? Are they ignorant of 
our welfare ? Have they, by the change caused by 
death, lost their love for us, and their anxiety for our 
reaching that Eternal Life of Peace ? Oh, should we 
not rather think, that as they have now a truer 
knowledge of that Glory that is to be given for the 



Louis Sandford Schuyler. 6r 

holy — as they know more surely the Son of God — so 
they would be more sincerely and intensely moved by 
their love for us, and pray for us the more earnestly ? 
The Word of God has revealed to us the fact that the 
dead are not unconscious, that they still remember 
the living, that they pray for them. What is Death ? 
It is the separation of soul and body. But this does 
not affect the ties that bound together the members 
of Christ's Body. The Communion of Saints is 
something spiritual ; and that which makes its effect 
enduring is the fact that Christ sustains it — in His 
Humanity is this alone to be found — 'As when one 
member of the Body suffers, all suffer, so when one 
member is honoured, will all the members rejoice with 
it ' — ' Ye are the Body of Christ and members in par- 
ticular.' The Body is united and Grace conveyed 
from one member to another and from the Head of 
the Body to those in Heaven and to those upon earth, 
by the Holy Spirit. The Communion of Saints is 
that life which they in common derive from Christ. 
This life is manifested by Love, intercessory prayers, 
giving of our own, that others may be benefitted, aid- 
ing in all ways, those whom we can aid, laying down 
our life for the brethren — these duties concern our 
fellows — and towards God, devotion, praise, offering 
the Sacrifice, glorifying Him by the love we bear the 
brethren, seen, in our praying for them and doing 
what we can to aid them in attaining eternal Hfe. 
The holy do not receive grace for themselves alone ; 
it is given them that they may sacrifice themselves the 
more for the welfare of the struggling members of 
Christ. 

" Now this blessed devotion to God's interests and 
those of others, comes from Christ. That many are 
joined together in heart and mind because of the 



62 A Memorial of 

same devotion arises from the fact that Christ 
receives into His Holy Humanity, all who are bap- 
tized, and partake the sustenance necessary for con- 
tinuing that Divine life, in the Holy Communion. 
He, therefore, is the source of all Grace, the link 
which binds all together, the Body which contains all. 
This Communion, therefore, is spiritual, deriving its 
strength and endurance from Christ. Can death 
destroy the spiritual life ? No. Neither does death 
destroy that Communion which is the blessed privilege 
of the Christian Church. The spirit is but taken 
nearer God, is gifted with higher graces, is filled with 
clearer and brighter light. That true love for our 
soul's welfare does not die \ but as the soul is enlight- 
ened by a truer knowledge of God and of the precious 
reward He has for us, there will be greater love of 
God, and therefore a greater love of us : the prayer 
for our soul's salvation will be only the more impor- 
tunate. 

"And if we love our brethren, knowing that if they 
have died in a state of grace they will finally be saved, 
though now they may not have received the unspeak- 
able joy that God will award them; we shall be 
moved by the same love that induces others to pray 
for us, and we shall pray for them, that God's light 
may shine upon them, more and more brightly unto 
the perfect day." 

What careful thinki7ig-out for his hearers of all the 
mystical structure and wondrous working of" the whole 
body fitly joined together and compacted by that which 
every joint supplieth," making " increase of the body 
unto the edifying of itself in love "! What love in him- 
self, burning, for all souls ! What plainness of speech, 



Louis Sa?idfo7'd Schuyler. d-}^ 

reaching after the simplest understandings with this 
great " prize of the high caUing of God in Christ Jesus "! 
And what august unconscious prophecy — " This Ufe is 
manifested by Love * * * laying down our life 
for the brethren. * * * The holy do not receive 
grace for themselves alone ; it is given them that they 
may sacrifice themselves the more for the welfare of 
the struggling members of Christ"! 

Thus he preached, and thus Hved, and so his living 
was a preaching, also. The gravest and most serious 
things of this world — poverty, sin, pain, remorse, grief, 
— ^were daily known to him, and so were daily about 
him, and with him, the concerns of the future world, 
all of which are serious and grave to a man walking 
in earthly sunlight — yet he was the farthest removed 
from gloom — the cheeriest and merriest heart imagin- 
able, full of quick brightness and honest fun ; patient 
of a weak joke, even, and when a really good one 
caught him, it seized and shook him with inextinguish- 
able laughter. 

But the whole man was so attuned by Grace that 
there were no discords in him ; though this very time 
of returning health and new freshness of body and 
spirit — ^when every prospect pleased — dates the follow- 
ing witness to his inner life. 

That remarkable book, the Biography of Henri 
Perreyve, by Pere A. Gratry, is filled by Louis with pen- 
cillings, and one passage to which he would especially 
direct his own attention is marked by his hand with 



64 A Memorial of 

the Sign of the Cross, — and these are the words — 
speakmg of the Priesthood — '* But the essential, the 
Sacerdotal purpose to which it should be used, is to 
die. Such death must be begun in chastity, continued 
in mortification, consummated in actual death, which 
is the Priest's final oblation, his last sacrifice." And 
again — " What if they (Thy Priests) fear it, shun it ? 
If they dread its foreshadowing, its far-off sound, as 
though it were a fearful, intolerable vision ? What if, 
instead of counting death as the most solemn of our 
festivals, the most worthy sacrifice of our whole life, 
we fear it?" And again — "And thus, Lord, I pre- 
sume to ask of Thee grace to love death, and since 
it is not well to be taken by surprise, by the unfore- 
seen approach of the grim shadow, I pray Thee that 
Thou would'st fill my mind with a continual, incessant 
meditation upon death." 

The following Resolutions were written-out in 
August, 1878, while Louis was in charge at the House 
of Prayer ; 

* 

" Resolved : 

To Pause 
(i.) Before reading, 

(2.) Before speaking on religious topics, 
(3.) Before instructing, 
(4.) Before any Office or religious Service, 
(5.) Before visiting the sick, or, 
(6.) Before going to talk with one on the subject of 

conversion 
— and pray that I may go and work in the strength of 



Louis Sandford Schuyler. 65 

the Name of the Lord Jesus — forget myself, and do 
aU for God. 

* 

" To be very cautious and careful in handling the 

Holy Vessels at all times, especially during the Cele- 
bration and after the Consecration." 

And the subjoined list is given (with many blanks) 
to show how minute and careful was his personal and 
pastoral prayer : 

" Those for whom I should intercede. — Father's 
family — Relations at Skaneateles — Staten Island — 
New York — Buffalo — Marshall — Miami — Green Bay 

— Sister Sisters of 

Good Shepherd — Sisters of Holy Child Jesus — Sisters 

of St. Mary— The Bishops of- and . The 

Priests of those Dioceses, also of the whole Catholic 

Church, but especially 

— Penitents The 

sick in Female Hospital (especially ) and St. 

Luke's Hospital — For one inclined to embrace the 

Faith, Mr. For the poor, especially for those 

of also in that Parish the rich — The mourning 

Those 

baptized by me — Those presented by me for Confirm- 
ation — Those who have been fed by me with the Bread 

of Life — My godchildren 

especially at Sext pray for and that they 

may be conquered by the power of Christ's love." 

"With continuing good health and, indeed, in- 
creasing strength and brightness, Louis passed the 
heats of Summer in the ceaseless labours of Minister- 
in-charge at the House of Prayer. Late in August (on 



66 A Memorial of 

Tuesday, the 27 th) he left that Parish, followed by the 
love and respect of every person in it, and attended by 
the tearful farewells and blessings of his poor. It will 
long be remembered how the poor people of the 
Parish, in particular, mournfully beset the Rectory on 
the day of his departure. Those in whose house he 
lived while in Newark are used to men of godly ways, 
and they say that their witness of him may be summed 
up in the single expression — That he was the holiest 
man they ever knew. 

He made a very brief visit to some kindred, and at 
the end of the week was at his post in Hoboken. On 
Sunday, Sept. ist, he began his service in the Church 
of the Holy Innocents there. The following letter 
was written on the next day and reveals the new 7nise 
en scene — 

" Yesterday was my first day as a Missionary in the 
parish of The Holy Innocents. The same name, you 
will notice, as that of my Parish at Oak Hill. The 
services were very delightful, indeed. Of course I 
have been here several times before -, but the services 
never seemed quite so pleasant as yesterday. The 
Parish is for the poor, and is in a part of the town 
where the poor live. There will be three of us — 
Priests — and we are to live together just across the 
street from the Church. The rooms are quite com- 
fortable, though of course quite plainly furnished. 
There will be plenty of work, and yet we shall not be 
overworked. What is of special advantage is that I 
shall not have the responsibiHty, as I am not in charge, 
but an Assistant. 

" There will be some souls, however, over whom I 
shall have special care. The salary is not large — $300 



Louis Sandford Schuyler. 67 

above the expenses of board. We have the two upper 
stories of a house — the lower is a store. The rooms 
are (on the second floor) kitchen, dining-room, bed- 
room for servant, general reception-room, oratory; 
on the third floor, three small bedrooms, library, com- 
mon-room, part of which is to be screened-off and a 
bed placed for any visiting brother Priest. There are 
no carpets, and the furniture is very plain, neverthe- 
less the home will be extremely pleasant. We go 
to our rooms to-day, and shall begin to live there 
immediately. The third member of our little company 
has not yet come, but is expected the middle of this 
month. This work among the poor is the work to 
which I have always felt myself called, and am so 
happy in finding that others' opinion agrees with mine. 
I shall never lament my going to England, but shall 
ever be thankful for it, and for the illness also that 
followed. I have the greatest confidence in Father 
Benson's judgm^ent and would be willing to do what he 
advises. In a letter which I received from him a 
week ago he says : ' I have no doubt that your calling 
is to be a secular Priest.' He therefore, does not 
advise my looking forward to the Refigious Life, but 
to active work in a parish. I have received this as a 
sure expression of God's will concerning me, and shall 
therefore devote my life to our Lord as a parish 
Priest. 

" If God should hereafter clearly indicate any call- 
ing of me to a life of greater denial and self-abnega- 
tion I should by His Grace follow His Guidance. 
This is enough about myself, but I feel assured that 
you and mother and all will be glad to learn how 
happily my work has been ordered by our Lord for 
me. You don't know how worried I am about the 
yellow-fever. If it reaches St. Louis please wirite for 



68 A Memorial of 

me and I will come and assist you for a time. I am 
sure that I can obtain the time (for I have already 
spoken of it) and there is no use of your overworking 
yourself. 

"I should like to have my copy of St. Ignatius' 
Meditations which I left at the house. I will continue 
to lend you my Bishop Andrewes' Devotions, for I 
know that you must like them exceedingly and when 
I do have the work again it will be so pleasant — so 
lovingly sweet — to know that you have offered praises 
in the words I may then use. 

" I hope, dear father, that you will remember my 
offer of assistance in case the pestilence reaches St. 
Louis and as I am in excellent condition, and anxious 
to work, the few weeks I might be in St. Louis would 
only be blessed for my good and (D. V ) for the good 
of others. I mention ' my own good ' first lest you 
should hesitate to send for me thinking that the injury 
to myself would be greater than the good I might do 
to others. But besides I fear that there was that 
longing for personal holiness by acts of this kind that 
made me forgetful for the moment of what should 
have been uppermost — the good of others. Tell 

M that on St. Augustine's Day I Celebrated, and 

that she was in my mind and heart as she always is 
when I Celebrate — but I know that her prayers and 
those of others have been already answered, for there 
has been a great deepening in my religious life and in 
the consciousness of the blessedness of being a 
Catholic Priest. 

" I cannot after writing so long a letter speak of all 
separately but they are all ever in my heart — never 
more really or sincerely than when at the Altar." 

On the day after the date of this letter, that is, on 
Tuesday, Sept. 3d, Louis went in the evening to 



Louis Sandford Schuyler. 69 

Peekskill, N. Y., to supply for a few days the place 
of the Priest serving at the Altar of the Mother-House 
of the Sisters of St Mary, at that place. He Cele- 
brated in the Sisters* Chapel at seven o'clock on the 
morning of the following day (Wednesday, the 4th). 
Soon after, at about half-past eight o'clock, the 
Mother-Superior received a telegram from the Sisters 
of St. Mary at Memphis, Tenn., saying — "The 
Rev'd Dr. Harris is dangerously ill, the Rev'd C. C. 
Parsons is just attacked by yellow-fever, and there is 
no other Priest of the Church in Memphis." The 
Mother-Superior took the telegram to Louis. He 
said — " Perhaps I can go to the Sisters. Mr. Sword 
has spoken of going — he ought not to go, but I think 
I might." The Mother-Superior expressed a wish 
for the advice of the Rev'd Dr. Houghton, and Louis 
then proposed to go, himself, at once to New York, 
bearing the dispatch. This being agreed to, he 
departed by the 9:45 A. M. train. 

He went directly to the Rev'd Dr. Houghton, with 
whom at that time was the Bishop of Tennessee, and 
begged to be instantly sent to Memphis. Dr. Hough- 
ton says — " His heart seemed thoroughly stirred within 
him. He came to me with the determination to set 
ofif as soon as possible. Obstacles were put in his 
way. He was detained against his will twenty-four 
hours. The yielding to his wish here was not until he 
said he felt he must go." 

Bishop Quintard says — "When he presented him- 
self at the Rectory of The Church of The Trans- 



70 A Memorial of 

figuration, and offered his services to me, he wished 
very much to go to Memphis — to take up the work of 
Mr. Parsons. Very many Priests tendered their ser- 
vices — Father Grafton, of Boston, Mr. Wilson, of 
Michigan, Mr. Milner Jones, of South Carolina, Mr. 
Jardine, of St. Louis and some thirty others — but 
I did not think any unacclimated person should ven- 
ture, while it was possible to secure the services of 
Clergymen who were acclimated. Mr. Schuyler, 
however, had made up his mind to go to Memphis. 
He had evidently consecrated himself to the work 
before him and was impatient of delay." 

There is not the least doubt that upon reading the 
telegram at Peekskill Louis formed his unshaken 
purpose to go to Memphis if no person physically more 
fit should volunteer. None who knew him well — per- 
haps none who read this simple story of his life — can 
believe that any other determination could be possible 
for him. It is enough on this head to recall the cir- 
cumstances of the time — Priests of the Church failing 
and dying, without comfort from any brother ; Sisters, 
who had ministered unto death, with no Ministry of 
the Church at the last hour ; those of them who yet 
lived, working endlessly in scenes of frightful anguish 
and desolation without the Sacramental Food which 
is their daily nourishment and strength ; hundreds of 
all classes suffering and dying without any Offices of 
Religion. Clearly this was enough to determine such a 
man, whose profession was Sacrifice, and his business 
the cure of souls. 



Louis Sandford Schuyler. 71 

At noon of Wednesday Louis returned to Hoboken 
to prepare for his departure, that evening, in case the 
situation should remain unchanged. The Rev'd Mr. 
Sword says — 

" He came into this house about noon and startled 
me with the statement, made in the most quiet and 
simple way, that he was going to Memphis. I begged 
that time should be taken to consider whether some 
one could not be found to whom the undertaking 
would involve less peril — but he was sure there was 
no one. We had luncheon. I assisted him in pack- 
ing. Very little was said. I went with him to the 
ferry and bade him good-bye with a very sad heart. 
He was going to Dr. Houghton's to learn whether any 
word had come from Memphis and to get his passes, 
expecting to start at six that evening." 

It is a most moving and pathetic instance of Louis' 
devotion to others that, in the hurried hours above- 
mentioned — a time when, if ever, a man might be 
pardoned for thinking of himself, and for excitement 
and mental distraction — Louis was tranquilly employed 
with the concerns of another person, in whom he had 
a deep interest. The following letter tells its own 
story — it is copied from the original MS.: 

" Hoboken, Sept. 4th, '78. 

Dear : I leave this evening for Memphis. 

There is great need of me there. I make a very 
special request of you. Will you put this letter in 
's hands ? It must not be spoken-of, as it re- 
gards her spiritual welfare. I trust you. 
" BeHeve me, 
i{i "Aff'tly yours, 
(" God bless you ") " L. S. Schuyler." 



72 A Memorial of 

Louis learned in New York that there was some 
prospect that another Priest, used to the fever, might 
be had at Memphis, and upon this account and by 
other reasons he was dissuaded from starting that 
evening, and returned to Hoboken. The Revd. Mr. 
Sword says — 

" At six I was astonished by his coming in. Louis 
still thought he had better go, but would wait until 
the next day, hoping in the meantime to hear from 
the Sisters. I begged him to use the greatest caution 
about entering upon this task, as I was certain he 
would be wrong in going without the gravest necessity. 
We talked over the matter all that evening and late 
into the night. What struck me most of all was the 
humihty he showed. He did not seem to think he 
was about to do any great thing but simply was follow- 
ing a call of duty. His great anxiety was that there 
should be no self-will in his action. He wanted to go, 
not because it was a heroic action, not because his 
enthusiasm was aroused, but simply because God 
seemed to call him. The next morning he Celebrated 
in the Church at six o'clock, I served him. After 
he had vested and said the prayer in the Sacristy, just 
before entering the Sanctuary, he turned to me and 
said — * Let it be our special intention at this Cele- 
bration that whatever in this matter is of self may 
come to naught, and whatever is of God may be 
prospered.' So with that intention we offered the 
Holy Sacrifice, and received together the Bread of 
Life." 

Shortly after this Service Louis went to New York, 
again prepared to go South. The natural fear and 
urgency of his kindred had not prevailed with him, 
and on the night before they had therefore seen Bishop 



Louis Sandford Schuyler. 7 3 

Quintard, who telegraphed to the Revd. Dr. Schuyler 
at St. Louis asking if he would consent to Louis' 
going to Memphis. Louis found that no answer to 
this message had arrived, nor to the message which 
had been sent to the Sisters at Memphis announcing 
his readiness to go on and requesting information. 
He waited all day in vain for these answers, and at 
evening left for Memphis on the six o'clock train, 
(Thursday, Sept. 5th). 

Bishop Quintard says of this day — "What struck 
me was his devout collectedness — his concentration 
of purpose. I am sure that he had consecrated him- 
self to this special mission at the Altar. Once, while 
talking with .him, my attention was arrested by his 
evidently losing himself in prayer. When he replied 
to some question which I addressed to him he bowed 
very meekly and signed himself with the Sign of the 
Cross." 

Just after Louis had left, a dispatch arrived from 
the Sisters at Memphis deprecating his coming, and 
also one from the Revd. Dr. Schuyler of St. Louis 
withholding his consent. Bishop Quintard thereupon 
telegraphed to the Revd. Dr. Tschififely, at Louisville, 
requesting him to stop Louis at that city, and detain 
him there for further instructions. This telegram was 
received by Dr. Tschiffely on the 6th, and in conse- 
quence of it Louis spent Saturday, the 7th Sept., in 
Louisville. Of this day Dr. Tschiffely says — 

" He came to see me in the morning and inquired 
about the dispatch, which I showed him. He then 
asked for the privilege of Celebrating the Holy Com- 
munion in the Church, and I made all things ready 



74 ^ Memorial of 

for him. After breakfast he went to the Telegraph 
Office and forwarded messages to Memphis and else- 
where. He was much of the day in prayer. He 
seemed to be completely possessed with the idea that 
his duty lay in going to the plague-stricken city, and 
all that could be done by others and myself seemed 
powerless to move him from what he considered highest 
duty. In the afternoon he received a telegram from 
his father imploring him to come home and not to go 
to Memphis. But so firm were his convictions that he 
wrote a letter to his father in language so reverent and 
beautiful that when he read it to me I was moved to 
withdraw further opposition and advance him on his 
journey with all convenient speed. Immediately after 
this letter had been mailed he received a telegram from 
Sister Hughetta, and, about an hour after, I had the 
following telegram from Bishop Quintard, in New 
York — ' Mr. Parsons is dead, let Mr. Schuyler go on.* 
He left this city at midnight of the 7th. When I bade 
him good-bye I felt very sorry — but he said to me, 
* Why do you feel so ? I never felt better in my life, 
and the way seems perfectly clear before me. I feel 
confident no harm will come to me.' I have never 
met any one who seemed to be so thoroughly absorbed 
in the idea of duty and devotion to his Master and 
Lord, Whose servant he was, and he \vho gave himself 
for others is beloved of Him. May his soul rest in 
peace, and perpetual light shine upon him !" 

The telegrams to and from Memphis mentioned 
by Dr. Tschiffely are given by Sister Hughetta, who 
says : — 

"From Louisville he telegraphed to me, *I am here, 
awaiting orders. May I come ?' I did not dare to 
take the responsibility of saying 'Come.' Yet so 
great was our need that I could not refuse his offered 



Louis Sandford Schuyler, 75 

ministrations. I therefore wrote — 'The Sister-Su- 
perior and Sister Thecla hopelessly ill. The Revd. 
C. C. Parsons is dying. We have no Priest.' I can- 
not remember that he sent an answer to my dispatch, 
but on Sunday afternoon he arrived at St. Mary's." 

The letter written from Louisville in reply to his 
father's telegram has been preserved, and is given 
here : 

"Louisville, Sept. 7th, 1878. 

" My dearest Father : Your dispatch was just 
received. I am truly sorry that you sent it, because 
I firmly beUeve that I am only doing right in going to 
Memphis, in case I am needed. When I offered my 
services, I was certain that, so far as I could judge, 
I was only doing what God demands of me. I started 
from New York fully intending to go directly to Mem- 
phis. A telegram however was put in my hand before 
I reached Louisville, informing me that Bishop Quin- 
tard wishes me to wait here for news from Memphis. 
I am now waiting. I shall not be called upon until I 
am needed. If there be need, I feel assured that I am 
only doing my duty, and in accordance with God's 
will, if I go. It will be very painful to act in opposi- 
tion to your command, and nothing but the conviction 
that I must obey God would at all satisfy my mind in 
not heeding your command. God's will cannot be 
but right. I have not been ordered by any one to go 
South, but my services have been accepted. God's 
blessing will therefore go with me. I am not going 
rashly, but if there be need God will have permitted 
the need, and then He will only bless me in filling up 
the ranks He has allowed to be thinned. 

" Therefore, dearest father, I think I am only receiv- 
ing the words of the Lord Jesus ; ' Whosoever loveth 



76 A Memorial of 

father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me,' 
in obeying His call to do the work of a Priest in Mem- 
phis, if He puts it into the hearts of His servants there 
to call upon me for assistance. God may not ask me 
to go. He may call me to that duty and preserve me. 
But, if He calls me and I go and die it is not a self- 
willed act, but an act of obedience to God. 
" Love to all. 

" Ever your dear son, 

" Louis." 

Here is the motive of sacrifice — full-sounding, and 
climbing to its utmost height of expression — " if He 
calls me and I go and die it is not a self-willed act, 
but an act of obedience to God." Strange if in his 
mind were any remembrance of the earlier letter — 
" It seems strange that our Lord would keep one 
away when His Church stands so much in need of 
Ministers"! That had been the ruling thought of 
his life. It was the only thought or feeHng of his 
mind and heart and soul, this day. The letters lie 
together, now, commenting each on each, with deep, 
mute eloquence \ and he who wrote them has learned 
(with what rapture of exquisite bHss and grateful 
adoration) that he was in no manner kept away. 

As soon as his father received the letter of the 7 th, 
he answered — '* You have my full consent, and my 
blessing". This reached Louis at Memphis, and it is 
told of him that his countenance was radiant, as he 
read it. 

When Louis reached Memphis he was much fatigued 
with his journey, but went straight to the Sisters' 



Louis Satidford Schuyler. 77 

House, ready for any labour. There he was urged to 
take a thorough rest before beginning any work. He 
said — "I do not care to rest. I want to do my 
utmost." He was not taken up to the Sisters' rooms 
on that (Sunday) evening, for both Sisters and Miss 
Gray had received the Blessed Sacrament that morn- 
ing, the Rev'd Dr. Dalzell having arrived from Louis- 
iana on the day before. But he exacted a promise 
that they would send for him in the night if he were 
needed. As he left the Sisters' House he met the 
Rev'd Dr. Dalzell. 

Dr. Dalzell says : 

"That day I shall never forget. The Sister Con- 
stance lay dying, and Sister Thecla hopelessly ill, in 
St. Mary's House, while another member of the 
household was just rallying from a severe attack of 
the fever. After hours of labour in different portions 
of the city, and witnessing scenes that filled me with 
horror, and made me realize that we were breathing 
an atmosphere of the most deadly poison, I had gone 
to the Sisters' House to pay a last visit there for the 
day. It was near seven o'clock, when, as I stepped 
from my buggy, a young Clergyman came hurriedly 
from the residence of Dr. Harris, and, with a very 
gentle manner and winning smile, extended his hand, 
with the words, 'This is Dr. Dalzell?' ' Yes,' I said; 
'and, my dear young brother, who are you, and 
where have you come from ?' His reply, given in a 
low tone, while his hp trembled with emotion, was, 
' My name is Schuyler; I am from New Jersey, and 
have come to render such assistance as I can in this 
dreadful time ; I have seen Dr. Harris, and he tells 
me to see you, and do what you say.' I asked him if 



78 A Memorial of 

he was related to my friend, Dr. Schuyler, of St. 
Louis. 'He is my father,' he replied, and a tear 
started to his eye as he gave the answer, * and I am so 
glad that you and he are friends, as it will be a com- 
fort to him to know that I am with you.' I then 
asked him if he had ever seen Yellow-Fever, and if 
he realized the risk he ran in coming to Memphis. 
To my dismay I found that he was utterly unaccli- 
mated, and that he had come, not as many others 
had come, with the hope, if not assurance, that he 
should escape, but as the brave soldier leads the for- 
lorn-hope, knowing that all the chances were against 
him, but with a burning desire to help the suffering, 
to work while his strength lasted, and then give his life 
cheerfully for Christ's sake and the Church. This, 
my first conversation with him, impressed me with the 
conviction that he had come to die, and that he knew 
it ; but had come in a spirit of the noblest self-devo- 
tion, counting the cost, and cheerfully willing to pay it. 
He seemed to be filled with a holy enthusiasm ; an 
ardent desire to begin his work at once ; and a readi- 
ness to endure all that the situation called for. Espe- 
cially was he exercised about the Sisters, and anxious 
to minister to them. 

"As he was fatigued by his journey, and required 
rest, I insisted that he should undertake no duty that 
night, but get refreshing sleep and be ready for such 
work as might present itself next morning. His reply 
was characteristic — 'But you are more tired than 
I am, and you ought to let me help you to-night* 
Mr. Parsons had been buried the day before, from Dr. 
Harris' house ; the Dr. himself was still confined to 
his bed after a very severe attack of the fever ; and 
Major Mickle was in the house in the first stage of 
the disease. It was, therefore, thought advisable that 



Louis Sandford Schuyler. 79 

he should take quarters with me at the Peabody 
Hotel. But he begged so earnestly to be allowed to 
remain near the Church and the Sisters, that a small 
bed was prepared for him in the parlour. Before leav- 
ing for the night, I told him that he must be satisfied 
for a few days to minister to the Sisters alone, and 
that I could not consent to his visiting the Infirmaries, 
or going into the more deadly portions of the city, 
until his system had become measurably accustomed 
to the poison of the atmosphere. The next morning, 
however, I found that after an early Celebration he 
had answered several calls to houses conspicuous for 
the number of cases of fever in them; and in the 
afternoon he went into the very thick of the pestilence, 
in the lower portions of the city, and to one of the 
largest and most densely-filled Infirmaries. I saw it 
was useless to attempt any restraint upon his zeal; 
that he had come to work, and would work at all 
cost; and that I could then only advise how to work, 
what precautions to observe, and to be careful in the 
matter of getting some sleep every night." 

After Celebrating the Holy Communion at seven 
o'clock in St. Mary's Cathedral on this day (Sept. 9th) 
Louis wrote to his father a letter, from which the fol- 
sentences are taken: 

" I am so very glad that I came, for I can be of 
good assistance. It was God's will, and He will keep 
me. Do not worry about me, for I am in God's hands. 

* * * I believe I was obeying God speaking 
through the Bishop and the Sister who telegraphed me 
after Mr. Parsons' death. I shall exercise all prudence. 
God will only allow what is best for me to happen." 



8o A Memorial of 

He also wrote the following letter on the same day : 
Memphis, Sept. 9th, '78. 

"Your letter reached me at a time when my mind 
was anxiously engaged, first in getting settled in my 
work at Hoboken, and then in getting ready to come 
South. I remember with the greatest pleasure my 
short time of work in Newark ; and your kindness in 
calling to say good-bye to me I shall not soon forget. 
I am very glad to receive your photograph. 

" You can imagine how anxious my mind is now, 
but for a day or two I shall not be allowed to do much 
running about in doing general work. Therefore I 
have time to spare for these few lines. I shall bear 
you in mind. Please remember me in your prayers. 
" BeHeve me ever 

" Yours, very truly, 

" L. S. Schuyler." 

During the night of Sunday, a few hours after greet- 
ing Louis, Sister Hughetta was stricken with the fever. 
She says : 

" Mr. Schuyler came to my bedside on Sunday morn- 
ing, said prayers for me and gave me the Church's 
Absolution. During the days that followed I saw him 
but once, when he assisted in the Celebration of Holy 
Communion on Thursday morning in our Chapel, 
bringing the Cup to Sister Thecla (then dying) and to 
me. Dr. Dalzell had taken charge of my case both as 
physician and Priest, and thought it safest to have me 
kept perfectly quiet and unexcited. Mr. Schuyler sent 
me a kind message every day, and I learned from my 
nurse how untiring he was in his work. Among those 
to whom he ministered was a gentleman, a friend of 
the Sisters, a patron of our School, but an infidel. 
Mr. Schuyler converted and baptized this man, whose 



Louis Sandford Schuyler. 8i 

death was followed by the death of his three children, 
leaving the widow inconsolable in her loss but for the 
comforting thought of her husband's salvation." 

The Rev. Dr. Dalzell relates this fact in his narra- 
tive of the succeeding days. Dr. Dalzell says — 

" From Monday afternoon to Wednesday morning 
the weather was very bad, raining incessantly and 
very raw, and the streets were in a frightful condition, 
while the number of deaths was greater than at any 
other time during the epidemic, and the calls upon the 
Clergy incessant. 

" I very well remember that as we were on the way 
to the Cemetery with the remains of Sister Constance, 
he in one buggy and I in another, the rain pouring 
down, a request came to us to visit a sick man, and 
he ran on until he overtook me and excused himself 
from further attendance at the funeral, as he wished 
specially to visit this case, having already seen and had 
some conversation with the sick man, besides minis- 
tering to several sick children in the same house. 
That man had long been known as an infidel, one who 
gloried in his infidelity. He died the day our brother 
was taken sick, and died humbly penitent, brought to 
a sense of his sin and danger by dear Schuyler's 
ministrations, and being baptized by him. During 
those three dreadful days his labours were abundant, 
and I was struck with his cheerfulness, and the hope 
he began to express that after all he might escape and 
continue to be of service. 

" I saw him on Thursday morning and he seemed to 
be quite well, and spoke of his intention to visit sev- 
eral of the Infirmaries that day. He did so. In the 
afternoon, about four o'clock, I again met him in Dr. 
Harris' room, and instantly discovered that something 



82 A Memorial of 

was wrong. In fact, he then had high fever, with other 
symptoms of the prevaihng epidemic. Dr. Green, one 
of the resident physicians, who had come in about the 
same time with myself, agreeing with me in this opinion, 
I told him that he had Yellow-Fever. Then, and then 
only, did his spirit waver; and then it was evident that 
the burst of emotion that overcame him was occasioned 
by regret that he must stop work. * I had so hoped 
that I should be spared long enough to do some good 
for the Church, something for the glory of Christ.' 
When we had taken him down stairs, he begged me 
not to misconstrue his emotion; assured me it was 
not for himself he wept, and that after a httle while 
he would be calm, and show that he was resigned to 
God's will, which had put a stop to his labours, and 
had probably called him to die. Here his work ended. 
In less than four days from the time he reached the 
plague-stricken city he was lying in the throes of the 
deadly disease. But they were days of glorious work 
for Christ and the Church : visiting the sick, praying 
with, instructing and directing them, administering the 
Holy Sacraments to the dying, burying the dead, and 
ministering hope and consolation to the bereaved. 

" He was ill from Thursday to the following Tues- 
day, from the first hopelessly so, as I thought. But, 
most mercifully, his brain was not affected until within 
two or three hours of his death. So I am enabled to 
say, that his death was no less glorious than his short 
term of labour. He was naturally of nervous temper- 
ament, and the excitement of the fever made him 
inclined to talk, which, of course, had to be checked. 
But he would not be restrained from speaking of his 
dear ones in his father's home at St. Louis, of the 
comfort he felt in the possession of a letter from his 
father, received after he reached Memphis, consenting 



Louis Sandford Schuyler, 83. 

to his coming, and giving him his blessing; and of the 
most comforting reflection that he was being remem- 
bered by many, brother-Priests and others, at the 
Altar and in secret. Several times a day I ministered 
to him, every day Communicating him, and each day 
more and more impressed by the unspeakably noble 
motive of self-sacrifice that had brought him to this 
end. The Christian heroism that at first found utter- 
ance in those few quiet words spoken to a brother 
Priest, ' I am going to Memphis,' never forsook him. 
He showed not the slightest sense of fear, or appre- 
hension for his personal safety; never alluded to it, 
indeed; and was eager to go to the bedside of cases 
that would make even the experienced physician shud- 
der. If there ever lived a Christian hero, Louis 
Schuyler was one. If ever Priest of the Church gave 
his life, and gave it cheerfully, for Christ's sake, and 
the suffering members of His Body, Louis Schuyler 
gave his, and gave it cheerfully. I shall always hold 
him in sacred memory as a Martyr in will and in deed." 

Dr. Dalzell omits saying that he and Dr. Green 
gained admission for Louis into the Infirmary opened 
only the day before for the exclusive use of physicians 
and nurses. Dr. Dalzell himself took him there, and 
remained with him most of that night, notwithstanding 
there were in attendance a resident physician, and a 
special nurse who gave all of her time to Louis. 

It seems a peculiar mercy that Louis' brain con- 
tinued clear almost unto the end, since, in the words 
of one of the Sisters who survives, " the disease is so 
rapid in its course, so prostrating from the first hour 
of its attack, that the patient seldom speaks, or shows 
any interest in aught." 



$4 -^ Memorial. 

The Good Lord delivered Louis from this " sudden 
death," and granted him the priceless blessing of clear 
sense and thought through days and nights of solemn 
preparation. 

He knew that he could not recover, and begged 
that his Cross, which he always wore, might be buried 
with him. He desired that his ring might be given to 
his sister; and his Prayer-book, which had been the 
gift of his parents at the time of his Confirmation and 
first Communion, he left to his beloved mother, in dear 
remembrance of many years of tender confidence and 
affection. " He prayed much during his illness, fre- 
quently making the Sign of the Cross." 

Shortly before his death his mind wandered. He 
began speaking in a high voice, as though delivering a 
Sermon. His nurse quieted him gently. Then he 
said to her — "Please tell me whether I am in Mem- 
phis, or whether I am in my little Church at Hoboken." 
" You are in Memphis. I was afraid you would dis- 
turb the others who are ill," she answered. "Gentle- 
men, forgive me, if I disturbed you," he said sweetly. 
Then, with this gleam of his old, exquisite courtesy in 
his last-recorded words, he composed himself; and at 
half-past two o'clock, in the morning of Tuesday, the 
seventeenth of September, A.D. 1878, he joined the 
Church Expectant, and his soul was with the Saints. 



COMMEMORATION 



' The man that with me trod 



This planet, was a noble type 
Appearing ere the times were ripe, 
That friend of mine who lives in GoD." 



N indescribable cry of grief and admiration 
arose in every quarter of the land. Its 
many voices, secular or religious — private 
and tender, or public and official — blended into the 
one deep tone of proud regard with which mankind 
everywhere greets undaunted courage, and with a 
grateful sense of its own kinship applauds a man 
who dies for men. 

A few of these voices are given expression in the 
following pages. Most must remain unvocal here — 
though not less true and dear in higher regions where, 
if there be joy over one sinner that repenteth, we may 
weakly imagine the triumph over a Saint who has 
finished his course. 

The whole range of newspaper comment is ex- 
cluded. Collection of it would amount to a catalogue 
of all American journals, and many foreign ones, for 
the latter days of September, 1878. For it may, most 
likely, be literally true that no newspaper in this 



86 A Memorial of 

country failed to print and honour Louis' name and 
work. Selection also being very difficult, — and, in 
fact, the laws of space inexorable — it has been deter- 
mined to omit every newspaper reference, though 
many were very just, beautiful and precious. Some 
small selection out of a mass of private letters and 
memoranda has been made. Of these the things 
here printed are for some special reason fit. 

The following was written to the Editor by a man 
of ripe years, versed in affairs and men, clear-thoughted, 
impatient of pretense, and, as the phrase is, not in 
sympathy with all of Louis' views. It is in effect a 
summary of the best Lay judgment of the whole 
matter — 

"No doubt you judge your friend Schuyler rightly. 
Such are rare, but can be found if we search for them 
and have the capacity to recognize the character 
when found. * * * They have been such men 
as he — of like faith with him — who have done all that 
has been done in propagating the Gospel^ 

The following letters or parts of letters were written 
to Louis' father — 

"St. Mark's Church, 

"Paw Paw, Mich., 

"Oct. T5, 1878. 
" Permit me to add my tribute of sympathy to the 
very general expression you have received from the 
Faithful, both Clergy and Laity, throughout the Church, 
in the day of your sorrow and bereavement. * * * 
Shall I tell you, my dear brother, of my deep and 
loving sympathy with you and all of yours, and how 



} 



Louis Sandford Schuyler. 87 

this becomes a bereavement to the whole Church, and 
not, also, with you, as with her, praise and thank God 
for the precious example of His faithful Priest in his 
noble example of self-sacrifice and eminent Christian 
heroism even unto death? His is a name that will 
not be forgotten in the annals of our American 
Church, and his example such as will nerve many in 
the ranks of the Ministry to more faithful devotion to 
its dear, though awful, responsibilities. 

" May the dear, loving Jesus send to you the full 
comfort of His Grace and Benediction. 

"Affect'ly yours in Xt, 

"Geo. p. Schetky." 



} 



"St. John's Cathedral, 

"QuiNCY, III., 
"Sept. 28, 1878. 

" My dear Brother : On coming here two or three 
days ago I had the intelligence of the glorious death 
of your son. 

"A walk to Jordan, and a translation — but at the 
beginning of the Prophetical career ! 

"Even amid the undisturbed hopes of the early 
Priesthood, surely 'to die is gain', and such a de- 
parture leaves a record which the laboured patience 
of years might not have written. May our Lord 
continue and increase the comfort which He has 
already brought to you ! 

"As your son has the almost curious interest of tens 
of thousands of Christian people so have you their 
sympathy and their prayers. 

" May you and I, who have been set apart to the 
Lord's most sacred service and have served through 
a generation at His Altar and among His sick and 
afllicted brethren, at last attain such honour as your 



88 A Memorial of 

son already has, after his short, suddenly-closed minis- 
trations. 

"With warmest heart, 

"Yours in the Lord, 

"Alex'r Burgess." 



"QuiNCY, III., Sept. 23d, 1878. 

" My dear Dr. Schuyler : I hardly know whether 
in writing to you just now I am to rejoice with them 
who do rejoice or weep with them who weep. At any 
rate I cannot help saying a word of sympathy with 
you in this time of your great trial. * * * 

" It is a loss to the Church here in the work that 
your son would have done. For that we all feel like 
weeping. But what a heritage has the Church in the 
martyrdom he has wrought. His life has not been 
lost or thrown away. Far from it ! He will live, and 
his bright example will be cherished in many a young 
heart which will seek to emulate it. 

"While then I am sad with you in your natural 
tears I rejoice with you in the high and overmastering 
joy you must feel as you contemplate the resplendent 
record your son has left behind him— for while it is 
the possession of the whole Catholic Church it is yet 
yours in a pecuHar sense and no man can take it from 
you. 

"Most faithfully 

"And affectionately yours, 

"Wm. B. Corbyn." 



The ReVd Edward A. Larrabee, also of Quincy, 
wrote: 

"I need not tell you of the value I set upon the 
books you sent me, especially those notes in his own 



Louis Sandford Schuyler, 89 

handwriting of meditations in which it may be God 
the Holy Ghost was speaking to him of that heavenly 
wisdom which he exempUfied in counting not his own 
life dear unto himself. As I read, yesterday, in the 
first of these meditations, the words written by his own 
hand, and underscored — '•We are what we do' — I 
could not but connect the meditation with the Priestly 
and heroic action in which his earthly life ended." 



*' Chicago, Oct. 30, 1878 
"Rev. and dear Sir: Permit me to express my 
tenderest sympathy with you in the recent death of 
your heroic and devoted son. His life was pure and 
beautiful as a Saint's, but the story of his death is the 
record of a Martyr. Secular motives and self-seeking 
have a deeper hold on the Clergy than I can beUeve 
if his example does not lead us all to a more real con- 
secration to the service of the Blessed Lord. 
"Sincerely yours, 

"W. E. McLaren." 



J 



" Mission House of St. John Ev., 

"22, Staniford St., Boston, 

"17 Sept., 1878. 

" Reverend and Dear Sir : I venture to address you 
on account of the affection I have for your son, of 
whose death at Memphis early this morning I have 
received an announcement by telegraph. It was 
during a Mission in which I was engaged at Chicago, 
in the June of last year, that I first saw your son, and 
it was at that time that he offered himself to our Soci- 
ety. He told me of the peculiarly strong affection 
which bound him to his father, and I know. Sir, how 
grievous this sudden blow must be to you. But I am 
sure that in the midst of your grief you will be able to 



90 A Memorial of 

rejoice at the really noble end of a life which I believe 
he earnestly endeavoured to make noble throughout. 
God Almighty we may feel has accepted his dedica- 
tion of himself entirely to His service, in a better way 
than if his health had allowed him to continue in our 
Brotherhood. Our Superior wrote of him with much 
affection when it was decided that he could not 
remain at Cowley. I only saw your son on one occa- 
sion since his return — in New York, in the Spring; 
but I had heard from others of his faithful and suc- 
cessful work at Newark during Mr. Goodwin's absence. 
When I heard he had gone to Memphis — I thanked 
God for his generous courage — and I hoped his life at 
St. Louis might have prepared him to withstand the 
fever, but I felt that if he were to have a severe 
attack he would not be able to rally from it. And so 
it has proved. But he has had part in a really glorious 
work of Christian charity and heroism. And I doubt 
not for a moment that such a death voluntarily faced 
and accepted is a true fulfilment of his Priestly min- 
istry, and a most efficacious witness to the power of 
our Lord's Name. Pardon me. Reverend and dear 
Sir, if I have seemed to intrude upon you, and let me 
assure you of the sympathy and prayers of my Brethren 
— and of many others — in this time of affliction. 
" I am with great respect 

"Very faithfully yours in Christ, 

"Arthur C. A. Hall." 

"Cowley St. John, \ 

"Oxford, Sept. 30, 1878. j" 

"My dear Sir: I have just received the tidings of 

the death of your dear son. His offer of himself to 

the work at Memphis was an act of religious heroism, 

which one values all the more because it was no 



Louis Sandford Schuyler. 91 

strange impulse but in perfect accordance with the 
previous devotion of his life, longing to give himself 
wholly to God. And now God has accepted him ! 
He held him back from the slower processes of disci- 
pHne in our novitiate, that he might take him to Him- 
self as one whose heart He had already inspired with 
the fulness of love. Such an end as his must rather 
waken our emulation than our grief. Especially when 
we think of the life of weakness which would have 
probably been a continual burden to him amidst minis- 
trations of earthly service, one cannot but be thankful 
to think that it has been exchanged for the joyous ser- 
vice of expectant praise amidst the Choirs of Paradise. 
" I am quite thankful to have had the privilege of 
knowing him, although our intercourse was of so 
brief a character, and mingled with anxiety and sor- 
row. Yet his deep love for his Saviour was full of 
teaching to all who witnessed it. The acquaintance 
of the greatest of men in the paths of earthly life is 
not to compare with the knowledge and love of God's 
great Saints, however brief and however compassed 
with the sorrows of outward infirmity. The weakness 
of earth passes away from such friendships. The joy 
of Heaven remains as a link between our souls for- 
ever. Indeed I am thankful to feel that he is almost 
a link between our Society and the noble work at 
Memphis. It is almost as if one of ourselves had 
been there, for he was thoroughly one with us in 
heart, besides being an Associate of the Order. Yet 
I know that the death of a son must be grief to a 
father's heart. Accept then my dear Sir, at once my 
sympathy in your sorrow and my congratulations upon 
the glory which enshrines it. 

" I am yours, 

"Very truly, 

" R. M. Benson." 



i 



92 A Memorial of 

"Trinity Church, 

" Lincoln, 

"Sept. 20, 1878. 
" My dear Dr. Schuyler : I am unable to express my 
sadness at the intelligence of your son's death in 
Memphis. His volunteering to take the place of the 
Rev. Mr. Parsons was a grand act, his fall is immortal 
heroism. You have the unspeakable privilege of call- 
ing him your son, and the whole Church the splendid 
example of one of her children willing to go down into 
the grave for the sake of his Master and humanity. 
There is a grandeur in the Incarnation as he believed 
it, and since he fell I have seen it as never before. 
In the future men will speak of him, and will believe 
even as he believed. The last interview I had with 
your son was at the Convention of 1875. He then was 
all on fire. He reminded me of F. W. Robertson, as 
I had learned to think of him. His difficulties regard- 
ing certain questions were settled. The Church was 
all-glorious to his view, and he seemed to be almost 
transfigured by the sight. I have not met him since, 
and did not know he was in New Jersey until I saw 
he had volunteered for Memphis. Every day I prayed 
for his safety. His death was a shock, a sudden sur- 
prise, as cruel as sudden. Oh, I cannot write you 
the anguish I felt. My thought has turned to you. 
May God strengthen you to bear this sore bereave- 
ment and give you a sweet peace as you lean upon 
Him. 

" Faithfully and affectionately, 

" Joseph E. Martin." 



" I am glad to hear that his friends are preparing a 
tribute to the memory of our dear friend and brother, 
Mr. Schuyler, and esteem it a privilege to add my 



Louis Sandford Schuyler. 93 

little offering of honour and love. The news came to 
me in a foreign land, almost at the same moment, of 
his starting for the post of dangerous duty, and of his 
•dying at it. I cannot speak of the distress which I 
feel at the loss of his life and example out of the 
Church on earth. And yet I was not surprised at the 
impulse which caused him to offer his services m the 
South. It was of a piece with the self-forgetfulness 
and devotion of his character. To others will be left 
the duty of sketching-out the features of his life. My 
own more particular acquaintance with him began 
when, after his College course was ended, he apphed 
to be admitted, in September 187 1, as Candidate for 
Holy Orders. His course from the first was marked 
by that scrupulous conscientiousness, and that anxious 
self-discipline which characterized him to the end. 
I remember the emphasis with which his Examiners 
reported his examination as being particularly satisfac- 
tory. His work at Oak Hill was remarkable. He 
entered into the life and interests of the humble 
miners, who formed the greater part of his Parish, 
with an absorbed enthusiasm. I recall the conversa- 
tions which we had when I made my visits to his 
Parish, how he was all engrossed in the joys and 
household anxieties of his people. The natural result 
followed. His people, not easily aroused to rehgious 
duties out of their hard, anxious life, gave him their 
confidence and love without measure. Then followed 
a Confirmation, the Candidates for which were from 
the gentler and from the more humble families of his 
Parish, which in its size and import, considering the 
numbers of the Congregation, is without parallel in the 
history of this Diocese. And the deep, spiritual im- 
press of his teachings and his life remains with that 
people to this day. WhUe engaged in this work there 



94 ^ Memorial of 

came to him a period of anxiety and doubt which will 
have mention at other hands. It was the occasion of 
many anxious conferences between us. The result 
for him was a regained confidence in the Church's 
Faith and Authority which never afterward faltered. 
The ascetic severity of his life told upon his health ; 
and this at length compelled him to resign his work, 
and he left the Diocese to go to England, although 
he remained canonically resident until within two 
months of his death. The fact that our birthdays 
coincided as to month and day was the occasion of 
several interchanges of remembrance between us, and 
the last note I had from him was one recalling this 
coincidence, last Spring, and sending me a flower 
plucked at Malvern, in England, on the previous 
Christmas-Eve, with a loving note. A brave, loving, 
patient, self-denying Priest, his next birthday will be 
spent in Paradise. 

"C. F. Robertson." 



The following letter is from a Unitarian Minister — 
Chancellor of the Washington University at St. Louis : 

" My Dear Sir : Will you permit me to express my 
deep and sincere sympathy with you under your severe 
bereavement \ and further, to say that, in common 
with all right-minded persons, I hold in honour the 
spirit of self-sacrifice in which your son gave his Ufe 
in the Master's service. There may be some who call 
it imprudence, but so is all martyrdom and all heroism 
if measured by a worldly standard. He who stops to 
consider profit and loss when duty calls, has never 
leaned upon the Cross of Christ. As the soldier goes 
deHberately in the face of death, under the word of 
command, so did your noble son in a grander service 



Louis Sandford Schuyler, 95 

and in obedience to the Captain of our Salvation. It 
is not a lost life. Out from such losses come the best 
gains of humanity. We feel ennobled and strength- 
ened for our daily work when we see such complete- 
ness of self-surrender, and I feel that there is some- 
thing enviable in a death which is thus sanctified. 
May He to Whose service your dear son gave himself 
comfort you with all the blessed influences of Christian 
faith, that you may be able to submit yourself to His 
Divine disposal. Pardon me for thus intruding on 
your grief, 

" As your sincere Friend, 

"W. G. Eliot." 
"St. Louis, Sept. 18, '78." 



" Chicago, Sept. 19, '78. 

" Dear, Dear Doctor : My eye has just caught the 
telegram of Louis' death. I know how your heart is 
bleeding, yet, my dear friend, it is a great thing to 
have a Saint and Martyr in one's family. It is a splen- 
did jewel in the family crown, and, believe me, every 
Priest in the whole world will feel lifted up and 
strengthened and exalted by the record of that self- 
sacrifice. Young as he was, his noble death will work 
a greater work than if he had lived a hundred years. 
1 know that just now you cannot think of this, but you 
will. Just think how near he will be to his Saviour, 
how effectual his prayers will be for you and for us all ! 
I will pray for his rest and peace, though I feel he 
needs but small purgation. His soul was very white 
and clean. 

" With all our love to you, and my earnest prayers 
for your strengthening, I am 

" Affectionately your friend, 

"Clinton Locke." 



96 A Memorial of 

*' Racine College, ) 

*' Advent, 1878. f 

****** 

" You know, my dear sir, far better than I, how 
earnestly and devotedly, with a full, deep appreciation 
of the Catholic life of the Church, your son went on 
in his Ministerial life and work. I can never forget 
the impression produced upon my own mind by the 
fact, that while he might have lived at home, and still 
continued to do his work in that mining population 
near St. Louis for whom he was labouring, he insisted, 
until his broken health compelled him to do other- 
wise, in lodging as his people lodged, and being fed 
with the same fare, that he might the more fully sym- 
pathize with their sorrows and cares. I felt very 
thankful during Lent, 1876, to be called upon, in 
your own beautiful Church in St. Louis, to preach the 
Sermon on his Ordination to the Priesthood. From 
this time forward, heightened by the effect produced 
by a mission conducted in Chicago by the Rev. Mr. 
Hall of the Evangelist Fathers, he ever gave his whole 
life to God. It has seemed to me as if God in His 
goodness had accepted what was the deep burden of 
his soul, that he might utterly and wholly give himself 
to our Lord Jesus Christ, not as he himself wished 
and planned at first, but as God in His wisdom willed. 
I hear every now and then people say that * it was a 
useless sacrifice of a noble life ;' ' that had he lived 
longer he might have done so much more good;' 
that it was * unwise,' * imprudent,' and the like. 
No one, I think, could know his character, the long- 
ings of his soul to surrender all things, even his 
own life, for Christ \ his efforts that way, his spirit 
like that of the two Apostles, (I think I may say 
so) who, when they were asked, ' Are ye able to 



Louis Sandford Schuyler, 97 

drink of the cup that I shall drink of?' answered, not 
counting the cost, ' We are able,' and were taken 
at their word; without feeling that God accepted 
his self-sacrifice, called him to a short, brave struggle, 
and crowned him as the Martyrs are crowned. 

" It seems as if life were made better and more 
glorious by such an example, as if he had placed 
before us a higher and better ideal of priestly life ; as 
if in his own life, having once been doubtful of it, he 
had shown that in the calm and sober and chastened 
system of our own Church, the fairest fruits of God's 
grace are every day to be found ; and in her deepened 
life, of which every day She herself is becoming more 
conscious, are more and more being manifested. 

" I am, with deep sympathy and affectionate re- 
gard, my dear Dr. Schuyler, 

" Ever faithfully your friend, 

"James De Koven." 



"New York, Sept. 19. 
" My dear Cousin : Louis' death, which was first 
announced here by a private despatch, came with a 
sudden shock, though his sickness had been tele- 
graphed, and the worst was to be feared from the 
first. In what I have seen of him, it always seemed 
to me that his chief characteristic was his spiritual 
seriousness, and his absolute loyalty — beyond even 
the possibility of disobedience — to his own conscience. 
His life since he came to be a man, as I heard and 
saw and should have felt from my knowledge of him, 
had been one of many struggles with himself, but they 
must all have been struggles to see his duty. After 
that I cannot conceive of any further struggle in him, 
except to do it, not counting the cost, even if the cost 
were to be, as it has been, his life. 



98 A Memorial of 

"All deaths are tragical, but how few are inspiring 
tragedies like his ; and all bereavements are sorrow- 
ful, but this sorrow must be touched with gratitude 
that by his short life and its brave ending, he has done 
more to kindle, in all who hear his story, high thoughts 
of service and sacrifice for others, than most men do 
who live out their threescore years and ten, and made 
us of the same name and blood proud that we share 
them with a martyred hero. Can such a death be 
called untimely ? And is it not of such a life most of 
all that we can say that he who loses it for Christ's 
sake shall find it ? 

"Accept the earnest sympathy of 

" Your afiectionate Cousin, 

" Montgomery Schuyler." 



The Rev. H. D. Jardine says : 

" Immediately upon my arrival in St. Louis, in Aug- 
ust, 1875, Mr. Schuyler, then a Deacon, called upon 
me, and the frequent intercourse which from that 
time forward strengthened and cemented the friend- 
ship which religious sympathy at once evoked, gave 
me the fullest opportunities of knowing intimately the 
disposition of heart and mind characterizing one of 
the purest and most devoted spirits ever known to the 
Church's history. 

" Together we discussed passages from the Fathers, 
questions of Moral Theology, points of Doctrine and 
Ecclesiastical History, with whatever concerned the 
dissemination of the truth as held by the Church in 
this land and nation. Together we laboured, watched 
and prayed for the upbuilding of the Zion of God, 
and hailed the signs of coming triumph for the Cross. 
After my ordination to the Priesthood, a new and 
more sacred relation was established between us, 



Louis Sandford Schuyler. 99 

when I became his spiritual guide and adviser. In 
all my intercourse with him I was constantly impressed 
with that deep devotion, sensitive conscientiousness, 
purity of thought and life, which, combined with an 
eager desire to minister salvation to dying souls, and 
stimulated by a zealous longing to tread in the foot- 
steps of his suffering Lord impelled him, first to 
choose a life of special self-denial, and offer himself, at 
length, for a service of terrible danger, to be crowned 
after a brief period with the wreath of Martyrdom." 



The ReVd John Sword, Louis' superior at Hobo- 
ken, says : 

" He had often visited me during the Winter and 
Spring and had preached and officiated in our Church, 
and I felt that I knew him quite well. But when he 
came to live with me in our Clergy-house, though it 
was only for five days, I became amazed at the depth, 
fervour and earnestness of his piety. I felt that I had 
never before been near so holy a man, so humble, so 
simple, so gentle, so loving, so entirely devoted to his 
Lord. He seemed to have no thought or wish for 
himself." 



The Rev'd Dr. Wainright, who has furnished notes 
of Louis' earlier life, says : 

" The alacrity with which he dropped all and hast- 
ened to the field of suffering and death, shows very 
conclusively that he had found some firm foothold, 
where authority was something other to him than im- 
pulse. It appeared to him no less than a voice from 
Heaven commanding — and like every obedient soldier 
he had no question to ask. He had little opportunity 



100 A Memorial of 

to administer either to the physical or spiritual neces- 
sities of the suffering ones. Death struck him too 
soon for that. And that was not his mission. He 
thought it was — but through his faith and love and 
sense of duty, God would make him, young as he was, 
a perpetual sermon — such as no living hand can write 
— for all who shall read and hear the grand story of 
his life. Herein lay his mission. This act of devo- 
tion to duty was the ground-principle in young Schuy- 
ler's character. It was in no freak of passionate long- 
ing to exhibit himself as a Martyr that he went forth. 
He was of the genuine stuff of which Martyrs are made. 
He did not see, nor think of death, but of duty done." 



The following note is by the Rev. Cameron Mann, 
a dear, familiar friend of Louis : 

" When he returned from England, I chanced to be 
in New York, and saw him several times. His health 
was sadly broken, but he was confident of building it 
up. His intention was to engage in work so soon as 
he should be able, and the kind of work he desired 
was among city poor. His theological views were of 
the most ' advanced ' type, and in them he took great 
comfort. He seemed to me to model himself after 
the pattern of which glimpses are given in Froude's 
Remains, though I believe he had never read that work. 
But there was a peculiar gentleness about him, and 
much as his opinions might provoke controversy in those 
who thought differently, his was not a polemic spirit. 

" Whether he would have had what is called 
* ministerial success,' had he Hved, of course cannot be 
told, but I think he would, for character, abiUty and 
devotion such as his could scarcely fail in time to im- 
press any community, whatever might be its religious 
atmosphere. 



Louis Sandford Schuyler. loi 

" It has pleased God to give him success of a very 
different kind, and I, though I sorrow at a personal 
loss, cannot regret it. For him there can be no re- 
gret, he has gained the light toward which his whole 
life grew, and the Church, though she has lost the toil 
of a faithful Priest, has gained the glory of a noble 
Martyr. While for all who knew and loved him here 
St. Cyprian's words are full of helpful meaning — 
^fratres nostras 7ion esse lugendos accersitione dominico 
de sceculo liber atos cum sciamus non eos amitti sed 
prcemitti recedentes prcecedere.^ " 



One who loved Louis as a son is loved by his 
mother writes from Oak Hill, " to aid in the perpetu- 
ation of his memory :" 

" His first people — and O, how dear to us is his 
memory ! Zealous, sympathetic, meek, gentle, faith- 
ful and Christlike — truly I fear we shall never see his 
like again. Would that my pen could express the 
language of my heart, for then I might hope with it to 
do him justice. 

" He came to us to find a Church without a con- 
gregation and ere a year was passed it was regularly 
filled to overflowing — so much was he loved in the 
households he visited, and so earnestly had he laboured 
in his Father's vineyard. To the sick and afflicted he 
was a constant friend and benefactor, and attended 
personally to all their wants both spiritual and tem- 
poral. 

" He presented to the Bishop at one time thirty- 
three persons for Confirmation — a larger proportion 
of the entire congregation, said the Bishop, than he 
had ever before confirmed. 



102 A Memorial of 

"In all good works he was zealous. As a result 
of his labours in the neighbouring City Hospital I 
know of several persons led to devote the remainder 
of their wasted lives to God — brought back from a 
living death to life by his gentle hand. 

" Like his Lord who steadfastly set his face to go 
to Jerusalem where he knew a painful and shameful 
death awaited him, he set his face to go among the 
fever-stricken people of the South — strangers to him, 
but brothers and sisters — children of his Father, who 
might be dying without hope. He left all and went 
to them if perchance one soul might be led to Christ. 

" He will live in the memory of his people here as 
long as they live, and the Httle ones growing up will 
be taught to reverence his name. 

" May we all meet him at the last day, and may he 
shine as a bright Star in Heaven — for surely he won 
many souls to Christ." 



Mr. G. W. Parker, of this Parish, writes — 
"I knew him intimately and confidentially. Al- 
though much older than he there seemed to be no 
reservations on his part in our intercourse, and I be- 
lieve his most secret thoughts were laid before me for 
advice and counsel. A nobler, purer, and better man 
never lived, and the circumstances attending his death 
form the fitting ending of such a life. Somehow, I 
have never fully realized his death. I have never felt 
that sorrow for it that I have felt for some far less 
dear to me who died under ordinary circumstances. 
It seems as though he were simply gone somewhere, 
and is doing good there, and after a while we shall see 
him again. 



Louis Sandford Schuyle?-. 103 

" In this Parish, in every humble cottage and com- 
fortable house whose inmates he has visited and minis- 
tered to — with them and their descendants his memory 
will ever be fresh and green, and the story of his saintly 
life and heroic death will be handed down from gener- 
ation to generation — the imperishable . record of a 
noble and good man." 



The following is an abstract of a letter written to a 
friend in Holy Orders by the Rev'd A. L. Wood, 
Assistant-Minister of The House of Prayer — 

** ' Such have I seen ; and as they pour'd 
Their hearts in every contrite word, 
How have I rather longed to kneel 
And ask of them sweet pardon's seal ! ' 

"Newark, N. J., Sept. 19th, 1878. 
" My dear Brother : Last evening, at prayer-time, I 
was very deeply affected by the audible grief of the 
Congregation, for the first news of our dear Louis' 
blessed translation had been but just received. At 
the close of the Office I tried to make a few remarks 
on the sad intelligence. By a singular and most 
beautiful coincidence the second Lesson afforded an 
appropriate and impressive subject. It was about the 
anointing by Mary, of Bethany. In commenting 
upon the act of this devoted woman, I could not fail 
to see a very striking parallel with the offering just 
made in Memphis. That precious life was not 
wasted. The whole Church of Christ will be filled 
with the fragrance of that action. For the goodness 
of any act lies in its motive^ and not in its usefulness. 
The motive of this woman's act was a fervent love, 
and that love made it a good work in our Lord's 
sight. And the sacrifice made by our dear friend was 



I04 A Memorial of 

only a natural and not altogether unexpected result 
of the same devotion to the same Master — ' Greater 
love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his 
life for his friends.' No, the precious ointment was 
not poured out in vain, for ' Verily I say unto you, 
wheresoever this Gospel shall be preached throughout 
the whole world, this also that (he) hath done shall be 
spoken of for a memorial of (him).* Our Saint per- 
fectly believed our Lord's words, in the same chapter 
which we read yesterday — * Ye have the poor with 
you always, and whensoever ye will ye may do them 
good.' He was constantly seeking them out, and his 
favourite recreation was in ministering both to their 
spiritual and temporal necessities. The sum that he 
received for his labours here was mostly expended for 
house-rent, and food for the hungry, and medicines 
and delicacies for the sick. Like the Blessed Master 
Himself, he was constantly going about doing good, 
but always quietly, and without the least knowledge 
that he was doing any more than his duty. A brief 
outline of the way in which his time was spent, during 
the three months he was with us, may interest you, 
and perhaps others, whom we cannot comfort, nor 
even perfectly sympathize with. For their grief can 
only be assuaged by the Divine Love that throbs in 
the Sacred Heart of Jesus. 

" Usually he arose at about 5 o'clock, and spent an 
hour or more in prayer and meditation. He then 
went into the Church for the Celebration of the Holy 
Eucharist, which was offered four times a week, and 
on Saints' Days. The morning was passed in study. 
In the afternoon he visited the sick, the poor, and any 
who required especial help. Once or twice a week his 
evenings were occupied with hearing Confessions. 
Those who had the privilege of receiving the Ministry 



Louis Sandford Schuyler. 105 

of Consolation at his hands speak with great thankful- 
ness and deep reverence of his wonderful power as a 
Director. He seemed to have an almost intuitive 
knowledge that was of great service in deaHng with 
many difficult cases. All who were brought into inti- 
mate relations with him were deeply impressed with 
his genuine sanctity. He was, in the fullest meaning 
of the term, a holy man. The one comfort I have 
been able to give his penitents is the reflection that he 
is still living ; still has a full recollection of earthly 
associations; and in that glory which 'eye hath not 
seen,' amid the triumph-songs which, as yet, * ear hath 
not heard,' his prayers are going up for all who were 
dear to him here. Another abiding source of consola- 
tion is 'the contemplation with assured hope, of a soul 
so remarkable for a clear and noble Christian sim- 
plicity' as our dear friend's was, 'passing into that 
region of peace, where all is pure, noble, simple, and 
Christian, and welcomed thither by the myriads of 
kindred spirits' (including his own patron Saint, John 
Keble), ' which are there waiting for the remainder of 
those with whom they are to be made perfect.' 

" It seems to me that Louis* influence upon souls 
in our Parish will always remain. His supernatural 
life and vaHant death, cannot fail to impress not only 
our own people, but many others in this community 
who did not even know him. 

" The tone of public opinion may be gathered from 
the leading article in one of our local papers which I 
mailed to you yesterday. It is decidedly one of the 
best secular editorials I have ever read. The writer 
is not even a Churchman, nor does he have any par- 
ticular affection for our school of thought. He might 
have listened to a thousand sermons on self-oblation, 
but he never could have learned the true meaning of 



io6 A Memorial of 

the term until it was brought home to him by the 
example of this devoted servant of Christ and His 
Church. 

"On the morning of Tuesday, August 27th, our 
dear friend offered his last Eucharist at our Altar. 
I afterwards breakfasted with him at the Rectory, and 
then helped him get his things together. He left 
quite early for Hoboken, and we parted for the last 
time in the R. R. station. 

" I am certain that his departure for the South was 
not remotely dreamed of at that time, for we fully 
expected to meet again very soon, and it may be that 
our happy anticipations will be realized, ' For a thou- 
sand years in Thy sight are but as yesterday'. 

" I only wish that I could speak comfortably to our 
dear Louis* father. But with so many better comfort- 
ers any words from me would, perhaps, seem almost 
presumptuous. There is One alone Who can afford 
true consolation at such a trying time as this. It is even 
He Who when He saw a dead man carried out, the 
only son of his mother, had compassion on her. Hk 
is even now touched with a feeling of the sorrow of 
heart which has fallen upon poor Dr. Schuyler and 
his family, whom may God bless and comfort for His 
sake. 

"My own feelings are far too deep for words to 
express. You know that I loved dear Louis, and I 
cannot say more." 

The following lines, which have been treasured in 
MS. by Louis' kindred, are fitly here preserved in the 
security of print. They conclude the present series 
of selections from the many existing tributes of pri- 
vate, personal love and veneration : 



Louis Sandford Schuyler, toy 



SONNET. 

" When some great deed of sacrifice is wrought 
Ever will rise the thought in human hearts 
Alas, what waste ! Into how many parts 
Could that have been divided, which now, one 
Wild gift of love, is almost careless thrown 
Down at the Master's feet. Thy death but starts 
The censure, * Those thy sympathetic arts 
Could cheer and help, thou leavest to their moan.' 
Yet not in vain the lesson once was taught 
That lavishness is sometimes duty's claim, 
When Christ declared a good work had been wrought, 
Coeval with His Gospel in its fame — 
Thy brief yet lasting service was to show 
The Church that still her Martyr Spirits glow." 



to8 A Memorial of 

It is naturally difficult to learn how many Memorial 
Celebrations or other Commemorative Services were 
held throughout the country. Doubtless there were 
some — perhaps there were many — intelligence of 
which hardly passed beyond the bounds of the Par- 
ishes in which they took place. 

The following are known to the Editor : 

In the Parish to which Louis was attached — the 
Church of The Holy Innocents, at Hoboken — there 
were Memorial Celebrations on Sept. 24th, and on 
Oct. 17 th. 

There was a special Commemoration in the Chapel 
of Racine College — a place justly sacred and very 
dear to Louis. 

So, also, at the Church of The Good Shepherd, at 
Quincy, 111., on St. Matthew's Day. 

At St. Ignatius' Church, New York, there was a Me- 
morial Celebration at seven A. M. on Oct. 24th, the 
Rev. Dr. Ewer being the Celebrant, at which an unu- 
sually large number of the Faithful were present. On 
the preceding Sunday the Rector had delivered a 
Commemorative Address upon the Memphis Dead 
with special reference to the Rev. C. C. Parsons, to 
Louis, and to Sister Ruth, who was a God-child of the 
Reverend Preacher. 

The following memorandum is from one of the Rev. 
Clergy of the Church of The Advent, in Boston. It is 



Louis Sandford Schuyler. 109 

of peculiar interest to note that the three days spe- 
cially marked were the three well and active entire 
days granted to Louis in Memphis : 

" We did not have any special public Requiem for 
the Priests and Sisters at Memphis. They were in 
our prayers all the time. During that week we 
observed in Church Three Days (Sept. 9th, loth, 
nth) of Special Intercession. We said each day at 
noon the Seven Penitential Psalms and the Litany, 
preceded by a short bidding-prayer to this effect : 

** Let us pray for all who are suffering from the fever; 

" For the removal of the pestilence ; 

" For the Sick — Patience and Recovery ; 

"For the Bereaved and Destitute — Comfort and 
Provision \ 

" For the Dying and Departed — Mercy and Peace ; 

"For the ministering Clergy, Sisters, Physicians, 
and Nurses — Protection in soul and body ; 

" For the whole people — Repentance and the Fear 

of God — and especially our Prayers are asked for 

[I copy from a Paper of notes for one day which I 

happen to have in my office-book] — 

" Sister Constance — Entered into Rest ; 

^'ReVdGeo. C. Harris,) 

" Sister Hughetta, )■ Sick ; 

" Sister Thecla, ) 

« -D »^ T-k -Tk 1 n ^ Who have volunteered to take 
" Rev d Dr. Dalzell, f ^, , r -n • ^ i. i. 
«-D ^^T COT, 1 r the place of Priests who have 
Rev'd L. S. Schuyler, I ^g^jj^^,, 

At the Church of The Transfiguration, in New York, 
there was daily remembrance, at the Celebration, of 
Louis during his illness, and on the morning after 



no A Memorial of 

tidings of his death were received the Celebration 
there was with special reference to him, his name being 
introduced at the usual place, as had been the names 
of those who had entered into rest before him. 

The ReVd Dr. Houghton has transcribed for this 
Memorial from his Thanksgiving Sermon the following 
passages relating to Louis : 

" In the Sacristy of this Church he knelt for Abso- 
lution and Benediction, and from thence he went forth 
as resolutely and cheerfully as if there had been no 
pleasant er journey for him to take, and elsewhere no 
pleasanter duties for him to perform than at its end. 
Soon after his arrival in Memphis he telegraphed to 
me the death of one of the Sisters, and added : * The 
Holy Sacrifice is daily offered.' 

" Until his arrival there had been no one for quite 
an interval to celebrate the Holy Communion. A 
week passed, and another Priest — all honour to him ! — 
the Rev'd Dr. Dalzell, who, leaving wife and children 
and Parish, had gone up from Shreveport for the 
Lord's and the brethren's sake to minister, as Priest, 
physician, nurse, almoner, friend, and in whatever 
other way mortal could, and who for more than six 
weeks continued so to minister to the people of Mem- 
phis — telegraphed : ' Dear Schuyler is very ill.' Then 
followed the daily dispatch, now with a word of 
encouragement — then of his desperate condition — 
until, on the tenth day after his reaching Memphis, 
came the telegram : * Dear Schuyler entered into rest 
at half-past two this morning. He was rational, re- 
signed, and Received shortly before he died.' 

"A letter written soon after says : * Dear Mr. Schuy- 
ler's work here was short, but full of blessing. He 



Louis Sandford Schuyler. iii 

baptized General not long before his death, 

and great indeed must have been the earnestness that 
won such a skeptic.'" 

There was a Memorial Celebration at St. Clement's 
Church, Philadelphia, shortly after Louis' death — but 
the exact date is not remembered. 

At St. James' Church, at Watkins, N. Y., on All- 
Saints' Day there was a special Commemoration of 
Louis at the Celebration, with reference in the Ser- 
mon to his life and work. 

By reason of the absence of the Bishop of Albany 
until Christmas there was no Memorial Service in the 
Cathedral there, but in the Bishop's Address, at the 
Eleventh Annual Convention of the Diocese, the Rt. 
Rev. Dr. Doane said: "Schuyler has gone, too; 
dead at his place of duty \ not from this Diocese, but 
after long enough residence in it to make me know 
how earnest the consecration of his every aim and 
thought was to the Master's service ; in Whose * for- 
lorn-hope ' he fell, I am quite sure without a thought 
even of any special sacrifice or peculiar honour." 

An account of the Service held at Fonda, in the 
Diocese of Albany, where Louis once was stationed, 
is contained in the following extract from the Mohawk 
Valley Democrat^ dated September 27, 1878, pub- 
lished at Fonda, Montgomery Co., N. Y.: 

*''' In Meinoriam. — On Sunday, the 2 2d of Septem- 
ber, there was held at Zion Church a solemn Memo- 



112 A Memorial of 

rial Service for the Rev. Louis S. Schuyler, a victim 
of yellow-fever. As upon former occasions, every- 
thing was done in a quiet, unostentatious manner; 
but upon entering the sacred building, one was deeply 
impressed with the appropriate decorations. Upon 
the Lectern an anchor of immortelles spoke of hope 
beyond the grave ; while in the Font a beautiful Cross 
of white dahlias and purple verbenas told of the faith 
that grows brightest at death. 

" Covering the Altar from whence his hands had 
dispensed the Bread of Life, hung a purple cloth on 
which rested a white cross and the inscription — In 
Memoriam — bringing first to our minds the remem- 
brance of the one great Sacrifice of our dear Lord, 
and with it a tender remembrance of him who gave 
himself a willing sacrifice, that he might minis- 
ter to the spiritual njeeds of those who were passing 
by hundreds into the dark valley friendless and alone 
but for the faithful servant of Christ, who, holding 
the Blessed Cup to parched lips, repeated the precious 
words, * The Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ which 
was shed for thee preserve thy body and soul unto 
everlasting Life.' 

* An appropriate and impressive sermon was deliv- 
ered by the Rev. Chas. H. Vandyne, after which the 
Holy Communion was celebrated, in which that por- 
tion of the Creed, — */ believe in the Communion of 
Saints^ — was beautifully illustrated." 

The following letter is an instance of Services held 
in places where Louis was personally unknown : 

"Detroit, Mich., ) 
"5th Feby., 1879./ 
" My dear Sir : The Requiem Celebration for Fr. 
Schuyler took place on Thursday, Sept. 19th, at 9:00 



Louis Sandford Schuyler, 113 

A. M., and was attended by a large number of the 
Faithful. We at Holy Trinity beUeve in the Com- 
munion of the Saints ; and during those fearful days 
offered the Sacrifice continually for those who were 
fighting the pestilence, and for the dying. When 
word came to us that dear Fr. Schuyler had gone, 
I said to the people in a Sermon, *the dear young 
brother deserves the Martyr's Crown.' And when he 
received it we gathered round the Altar, offered the 
' Venerable and Tremendous Sacrifice ' for his repose; 
and at the same time our glad thanksgiving for his 
*good example.' None of us had ever known Fr. 
Schuyler personally, but he was as dear to us, and his 
grand work and Martyr's death as precious, as if he 
were our own flesh and blood ; for we think we know 
that he was with our Lord Jesus Christ ' bone of 
His bone, and flesh of His flesh.' And so we had 
fellowship with him in Christ. Thus was he more to 
us than he could have been by the accident of birth. 
On the following Sunday at Vespers I made an 
address in which the above thoughts were expanded, 
and I told the people what I knew of Fr. Schuyler, 
and exhorted all to seek such union with our Lord as 
Fr. Schuyler so evidently had, and so bring to perfec- 
tion the fruit of Holiness. 

" Faithfully yours, 

"W. R. TiLLINGHAST." 



At the Church of The Holy Innocents, Oak Hill, 
St. Louis, a Memorial Service was held on the even- 
ing of Sunday, Sept. 2 2d, 1878. The Church was 
filled to overflowing. The Rector, the Rev. A. Batte, 
in a eulogy described as "in accord with the feelings 
of all present" depicted Louis' "noble, self-sacrificing 



ii4 A Memorial of 

and devoted Ministry and his heroic death — amid the 
tears of the whole Congregation." 

The following account of the Service at Trinity 
Church, St. Louis, is taken from a newspaper report : 

"A Celebration of the Holy Communion took place 
at Trinity Church, comer of Eleventh street and 
Washington avenue, yesterday at 7:30 A. M., com- 
memorative of the Rev. Louis Schuyler, who so nobly 
laid down his life while ministering to the sick in Mem- 
phis. 

*' The Altar was draped in black, the frontal bear- 
ing the text ' He hath borne our griefs.' The Rev. 
George C. Betts was the Celebrant and the Rev. H. 
D. Jardine acted as Deacon, both of whom were inti- 
mate friends of the deceased Priest. 

"After the Creed the Rev. George C. Betts deliv- 
ered the following eulogy : 

" ' In the Name of the Father, and of the Son and 
of the Holy Ghost. Amen. 

" * The Reverend Louis Schuyler has entered into 
rest. From the work of his Priesthood in a plague- 
haunted city his pure soul passed into Paradise on 
Tuesday morning last at half-past two o'clock, in the 
twenty-seventh year of his age. I tried to tell you 
last Sunday, when I besought your prayers on his 
behalf, how dearly I loved him; and now that he is 
no longer with us in the flesh I love him still, for he 
still lives ; 

** ' There is no death ! What seems so is transition ; 
This life of mortal breath 
Is but a suburb of the life elysian, 
Whose portal we call death. 

" * His steadfast faith in God, his ardent love of our 
dear Lord, his intimate communion with God the 



Louis Sandford Schuyler. 115 

Holy Ghost, his devout life, his gentleness, purity 
and amazing courage were conspicuous to those who 
were most intimate with him, while at the same time 
his sweet humility made him quite unconscious of how 
radiant an example of piety he was to us. 

" ' I dare not now trust myself to tell the memories 
that crowd upon me of his short ministry; indeed, many 
of them are of too sacred a nature to bear repetition. 
There are scenes that rise before me in which heart 
bared itself to heart, and prayers and tears of love were 
mingled, and blessed sacraments and earnest vows 
made up a friendship which cannot be sundered by 
any cause ; for as we often prayed with and for each 
other on earth, so now I still bear him in my heart and 
on my lips before God, and I know that he remembers 
and prays for us who await the coming of the Lord. 

"'I say with the fullest conviction of its simple 
truth that his life, his work, and what men call his 
death, were worthy of a Saint. Many there are in this 
vicinity, where, for a time, he executed his Office, who 
owe their peace and salvation under God to his min- 
istry, and who with others in more distant places will 
in the last day rise up and call him blessed. 

" ' Indeed he had but one object on earth — to glorify 
God in the salvation of souls. Christlike he went 
about doing good, wise to win souls, keeping the Cross 
of Jesus ever before his eyes, and faithful in prayer, 
constant in devotions at the Blessed Sacrament, he 
was by the Grace of God utterly lifted out of himself 
and seemed to live day by day in the very presence of 
our dear Lord. 

" ' It is just one year ago that he left this city for 
England, purposing to devote his life to a more inti- 
mate union with our Blessed Redeemer. In the 
Parish that he served while here, the memory of his 



ii6 A Memorial of 

labours is still fragrant and sanctifying. Ill-health, 
however, preventing the immediate accompHshment 
of a design that was very dear to him he returned to 
this country and when sufficiently recovered he took 
duty at The House of Prayer, in Newark. There it 
was my delight to visit him frequently this Summer 
and renew an affectionate intimacy that always 
strengthened and encouraged me. Once having 
asked me to Celebrate at the Altar there, he put his 
arms about me and said : ' you must esteem this a 
great favour, for I do not like to give up this Service to 
anyone.' He anticipated with great joy his settle- 
ment at the Church of The Holy Innocents in Hobo- 
ken, to which place he removed on the first of this 
month. It was from this Parish that the Rev. Mr. 
Parsons went, who recently offered up his life to God 
while caring for the sick and dying in Memphis. 
There I last saw him, and the very last conversation 
that we had together was relative to the peaceful 
close of a poor man's earthly life, in whom I knew 
him to be spcially interested. 

" * From thence, on hearing that Mr. Parsons was 
stricken with the yellow-fever, he went to Memphis 
with the bravery, aye, with the joy of the Christian 
Martyr, '• who counted not his life dear unto himself;' 
he was impatient of a single day's delay that was 
forced upon him at Louisville, thinking only of the 
souls that were passing away without the Blessed Sac- 
ment or the ministrations of a Priest, and when he 
heard of Mr. Parsons' death he would be detained no 
longer, but gladly took up from Jesus' feet the burden 
which that faithful Priest laid down, and so entered 
upon his last earthly work. 

" '■ He said : 'Why do you regret my going ; God 
calls me ; I am safe in His hands ; He will do what 



Louis Sandford Schuyler. 117 

is best for me.' And so he did. God accepted his 
work for a little while, and oh, what a work that must 
have been ! and then took him to Himself, vouchsafing 
to him all his faculties to the last, graciously permit- 
ting him to send loving messages to his friends and to 
receive for the Viaticum the Blessed Sacrament. 

" * While he was yet with us we mourned for him and 
besought God to spare him, but He had some better 
thing in store for him, and now — now I adore the 
Infinite Love — and bless and praise the mercy and the 
grace that has crowned His faithful Priest with ever- 
lasting joy and that will reward him with all His Saints 
by opening to him the Beatific Vision at the last. 

" ' Oh, think ! in that blessed Paradise he has already 
met those whose last hours on earth were made peace- 
ful by his ministry, whose aching heads his hands 
were the last to touch ; to whose parched lips but a few 
days ago he carried the most precious Body and Blood 
of Christ, whose ears, closing to all earthly sounds, 
heard his sweet voice commending their souls to a 
faithful Creator and most merciful Saviour; whose 
eyes, just opening to the sights of another world, saw 
as the last of earth the tender face of this young 
Priest, full of compassion, bending over them, and his 
hand signing them with the Sign of the Cross. 

" * Grant to him. Lord, eternal peace, and let light 
perpetual shine upon him. Make him to be num- 
bered with Thy Saints in glory everlasting, and give 
us grace so to follow his good example that we, with 
him and all Thine elect, may have our perfect con- 
summation and bliss, both in body and soul, in Thine 
eternal and everlasting glory, through Jesus Christ, 
our Lord. 

" * I will not,* said our blessed Lord to His chosen, 
* drink of this fruit of the vine until that day when I 



ii8 A Memorial of 

drink it new with you in My Father's Kingdom.' 
What mystic Eucharist is our dear brother sharing and 
Celebrating now! What grand choirs are bearing 
upward his strong love and blissful adorations in that 
land which no mortal may know ! And how with us to- 
day, with Angels and Archangels and all the Company 
of Heaven, he lifts up his voice in that song always 
one and always new, in which day by day we praise 
and magnify God's glorious Name ! 

" * Yes ! God has joined us together in one commu- 
nion and fellowship in the Mystical Body of His Son, 
and looks, as I trust and believe, in loving commen- 
dation upon our act to-day, when in spirit we unite 
earth and heaven in this Blessed Sacrament of His 
love, and long for that time when the sorrows and the 
partings of earth will be exchanged for the joyful 
meetings and the glad greetings in the ineffable peace 
and the undimmed glories of Heaven.' 

" During the delivery of the address the congrega- 
tion (among whom was the venerable father of the 
deceased) was visibly affected. To many, if not all 
of them, the young Clergyman was known, and the 
evident emotion with which they joined in the remain- 
der of the Service and in the reception of the Eucha- 
rist was a testimony of their sympathy and affection 
that must have been gratifying to his afflicted father 
and more immediate friends. 

" The Rev. L. Schuyler was a true hero, a faithful 
Christian soldier, and he met the approach of death 
with a calmness and, as a correspondent said, with a 
happiness that would have graced a Christian Martyr. 

" May he rest in peace ! " 

The following account of the Memorial Celebration 
at the Cathedral in Memphis, on Sunday Dec. 2 2d, 



Louis Sandford Schuyler. 119 

1878, and abstract of the Sermon of the Very Rever- 
end Dean, are from a newspaper of the time : 

" Memorial Services of Priests, Sisters, Laymen of 
St. Mary's Cathedral and members of the Bluff City 
Greys, were held in St. Mary's Cathedral last Sunday. 
The two companies, Bluff City Greys and Chicka- 
saw Guards, in full-dress uniform, with side-arms, 
moved in column down the centre aisle and occupied 
seats reserved for them on either side of the Chancel. 
The body of the Church was densely packed from *an 
early hour, and many retired, unable to procure stand- 
ing room. At eleven o'clock the clear, ringing voices 
of the chorister-boys were heard from the Sacristy, and 
the white-robed procession advanced to the Chancel 
singing the 202d hymn. After Litany, said by the 
Rev. Mr. Lynn, of Mississippi, the Memorial Celebra- 
bration of the Holy Eucharist was begun, the Very 
Rev. Dr. Harris, Dean of the Cathedral and Chaplain 
of the Bluff City Greys, being Celebrant and Preacher. 

" The text was from Hebrews xi. 2 1 : 

*' * By faith Jacob, when he was a-dying, blessed both the sons 
of Joseph, and worshipped leaning upon the top of his staff'. 

" ' In the first verse of this chapter, which has no 
other hke it in all Holy Scripture, St. Paul makes 
abstract statement concerning the reaUty of subjective 
Christian faith, and proceeds in the subsequent verses 
to fortify the statement and illustrate its meaning by 
exhibiting, one after another, instances of it taken 
from the previous history of the Church, and preserved 
in the records of the ancient people. He would have 
us understand that faith is that which makes real and 
actual before the time, that hope which reaches out 
and grasps the Invisible and the Infinite. 



I20 A Memorial of 

"'Christian faith is the substance or realness of 
things hoped for. This is that by which Patriarchs 
and Prophets took into their hearts the yet unfulfilled 
promises of God — received beforehand the things 
promised to be given. I cannot help thinking there 
is much in the faithful life and faithful death of the 
Patriarch Jacob reproduced in our own day, and enter- 
ing largely into the practical Christian life of our own 
time. The life was a long one, but the story of it is 
quickly told, so simple was it and so blessed of God. 
Almost at the beginning of it, as we may say, he goes 
forth from home, as Ms father Abraham had gone 
before him, not knowing whither or for what, only 
burdened and weighed down by an incommunicable 
sorrow. Reduced to the poverty which knows no shel- 
ter, and having no place where to lay his head, like still 
another Who went the same way long after, he lays 
himself down to rest upon the lap of Mother Earth 
and commends his life and way of Hfe to God. He 
little knew then how very near he had come in his 
desolation to Almighty God, nor how the emptying 
of the heart of all earthly joys had but opened the 
way for higher and nobler and purer. It is then the 
angelic vision is opened to him, it was then he saw 
with his soul's bright eyes the very Angels of God 
ascending and descending. It might be too much to 
say that to every Christian man is vouchsafed the 
angelic vision. The varying degrees in which differ- 
ent men seek to come into the Divine presence, the 
varying degrees in which they give up themselves and 
their selfish schemes for the love of God and the ser- 
vice of man makes it impossible we should look 
always to find the same results. But this may be 
truly said that to any Christian man God comes, one 
way or another, even though the human eyes 'be 



Louis Sand/ord Schuyler. iILt 

liolden that they do not know Him.' It may be it 
would bring you real comfort to be sure of this in 
your case — to know that the very detachment of soul 
from earthly joys which your hard lot brings you is 
from the loving hand of God — and that the purpose 
of it all, so far as it relates to you, is the opening 
through the sombre shadows of a glorious vision. 
I know there is many a Christian here to-day who 
needs the comfort of this thought, for there could be 
no comfort in the blinding mystery of life and death 
did they have no faith in God. You have come to 
realize what was not in all your thought. You stand 
to-day beside the grave of many an early dream. 
You have learned, as it may be nothing else could 
have taught you, to eat and sleep with disappoint- 
ment; or sleepless, to watch by the couch of many a 
hope, and you have seen it fail and die. I do not 
underrate such trials of human strength. I know 
myself as well as any one can know, how hard it is for 
men who are to stay here to say farewell ; to unloose 
the clasp of undying friendship and affection ; to 
see a dear love sail away in its purity and sink its 
white sails in the sea, regardless of the outstretched 
hands, regardless of the beseeching voice and the 
panting, yearning heart left behind on the sandy 
beach. But I know also this one thing more, and 
some of you know it better than I — that the dear 
Lord was very near to us then. He knew we should 
feel the blow. He knew that on the promotion of 
the Chosen ' sorrow would fill our hearts.' We have 
grown famiHar with the thought of the world's sympa- 
thy. All of us have faith in that and appreciate it, 
but we do not sufficiently grasp the other and higher 
thought. If human sympathy flowed out like a great 
river towards us, what, think you, would be the simili- 



122 A Memorial of 

tude to whi'ch we should liken the sympathy of the 
great loving heart of Jesus Christ? The spoken 
words, * I will not leave you comfortless : I will come 
to you,' come falHng on the heart Hke April showers 
on parched earth. True as God's eternal Word, we 
shall look again, you and I, into those dear faces — 
bright and cheerful here — but there radiant with the 
very light of Heaven. Meantime they leave with us 
their benediction. As Jacob, when he was dying, 
blessed both the sons of Joseph, so these the beloved 
leave behind not only the legacy of a precious memory; 
this would be a great deal — but also their loving fare- 
well, which is real, their blessing and benediction, 
which do not require mere words to make them real 
things. And who can doubt that their faithful love in 
Paradise still embraces us and still prays for us who 
are waiting and struggling mid the trials of life. Who 
can doubt their desire that we should continue to 
cherish our love for them and to pray for them, the 
same as when they were with us. Our danger cer- 
tainly in this day does not lie in the direction of too 
much faith. If we thank God, as we must, for the 
good example of heroic life and not less nor more 
heroic death, we have yet another thing to do, and we 
do it — instinctively we do it. The true memorial of 
those whom we have personally known and who were 
faithful unto death, is very much more than a memory 
of qualities however excellent, or of examples however 
deserving of emulation. In the prayer for the Church 
Mihtant we bless God for them, themselves, and not 
their qualities or their virtues only. 

" ' But there is something to be daily done by you 
and me, which rightly done shall help us on to the 
loftier Vision of the Son of Man in His glory. By 
old tradition it is said that the Patriarch Jacob, rous- 



Louis Sandford Schuyler. 12^ 

ing from the slumber in which he had realized as 
never before the presence of his God, found on the 
ground by his side a staff, the same staff which he 
carried always after, and leaning on which he wor- 
shipped God *when he was a-dying.' The vision was 
extraordinary and was to be never more repeated, but 
the staff was at once the memorial of it and also the 
emblem of a Divine Presence continually abiding. 
It meant to him God's providence — that which he 
could lean upon every day and hour and find support 
and strength. This same staff has been the support 
and strength of many another since then. The 
mighty company of faithful ones, growing ever larger 
and now calling in its roll many a name we once our- 
selves were wont to call, have leaned all, and no doubt 
lean to-day, in life and worship on this staff. Espe- 
cially strong did it seem in the day of danger, the long 
drawn out day which tried men's souls and tried their 
faith in God, and tried their love for man ; which put 
the utmost tension on the strongest nerve of Priests 
and Sisters and people, civilians and soldiers ; which 
also brought to so many the death unto which they 
were faithful. I know of many little incidents in the 
latter life of many whom we commemorate to-day, 
which would well illustrate their strong faith and their 
great trust in the loving providence of God, and at 
the same time their entire willingness, and even great 
anxiety, to have God choose for them the issue of it 
all. Time would fail me to speak now of these inci- 
dents as under other circumstances I should be glad 
to do. But I must not forego the mention of one 
such incident which seems to be a typical one, and 
wherein expression is given in words to thoughts 
which were in many another heart. A man said one 
morning to a woman: 'You are attempting too 



124 ^ Memoriai of 

much. You must desist. If the fever strikes yOu in 
this condition you will be sure to die. Go home.* 
And the woman said slowly, and with deep feeling : 
* No, I shall go on as I am. I shall do my duty, and 
I would do it if I knew certainly the result would be 
as you say. I would gladly die to save the patient's 
life.' The patient lives to-day, and that tireless 
daughter of the Divine Love is in Paradise. Dear 
brethren, I know no words in which to tell the deep 
admiration, the affectionate reverence with which I 
look upon such saintliness, for what is this but the 
perfection of heroism, which is sanctity — self-denial 
unto death. As we look over the long roll of our 
dead, not of this Church only, or of this military com- 
pany, but of the five thousand who, within the four 
months last past, have laid down their lives, we can- 
not resist the conviction that there is among them 
many a heroic Martyr, true as any in the Noble 
Army. And no doubt the happy Vision of Peace has 
come to many a soul to whom a human judgment 
would not award it. Their number is larger than we 
think. There are few things the love of God will 
not pardon in a man who dies for men. The Church 
has always recognized and honoured the Baptism of 
Blood, even when there was no other Baptism. Espe- 
cially has it always been her custom to commemorate 
her dead in connection with Eucharistic worship. It 
is there she keeps in mind the great body of the Faith- 
ful departed, there keeps fresh in our minds and 
hearts the Christian teaching of the Communion of 
Saints. You, my brethren, are bold enough to use 
the word, dare also to believe it, and to act upon that 
faith. Dare to take those dear names upon your 
heart, and offer them in intercession to your God, 
who is also their God. Who knows and who can say 



Louis Sandford Schuyler. 125 

whether your own salvation may not come to be the 
result of a reciprocated intercession? Our Blessed 
Lord Himself prayed even for the unborn, for such 
as had no existence out of His own heart. ' Neither 
pray I for these alone, but for all them also who shall 
believe on Me through their word.' 

"* Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and 

LIGHT perpetual SHINE UPON THEM ! ' " 

Shortly after the date of this Service Louis' father, 
the Rev. Dr. Montgomery Schuyler, of St. Louis, 
visited Memphis and there in St. Mary's Cathedral, 
on Sunday, Jany. 19th, 1879, ^^ preached the follow- 
ing Sermon on " The Doctrine of the Communion of 
Saints": 

Hebrews xii., 23: '**To the general assembly and church 
of the first born, which are written in heaven, and to God the 
Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect.' 
* ** ***** 

" The words of the text present us with a statement 
of the fact, which is indeed one of ineffable value, 
that there is a community of feeling and interest 
between the members of the Church on earth and in 
Paradise. Those on earth are represented by the 
designation of 'The General Assembly and Church 
of the first born,' whose names are registered or en- 
rolled in Heaven, 'because by the introduction of 
their names into the Book of Life, they are registered 
as citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven, with the 
assured prospect of the Heavenly inheritance.' 

" In the words, ' the spirits of just men made per- 
fect,' we are presented with the declaration that as 
members of the same Church there are those who 
have cast off their mortal habiliments and stand 



126 A Memorial of 

complete in the enjoyment of an inheritance, upon the 
fulness of whose possession, after the Resurrection, 
there can rest no contingency. 

"This is a subject which must have been often in 
your thoughts, and dwelt upon with comfort in your 
reflections ; from the fact that of late so many of your 
number have been passing from earth to Paradise. 
As we think of the Sainted Dead, must not the ques- 
tion arise, Have they lost all thought and interest in 
us ? and can we no longer reach them with our sym- 
pathy? There are certain great and fundamental 
truths which are de fide; which are essential to the 
integrity of the Faith, and which are required of all to 
be believed, who would be in fellowship with the 
Catholic Church ; and there are matters of opinion, 
which have not been dogmatically defined, and about 
which there may be a difference of interpretation. It 
is well for us under all circumstances to be humble 
and modest in venturing beyond the simplest deduc- 
tions of any Article of the Creeds, or in giving an in- 
terpretation not borne out by the literal meaning of 
their language. 

" ' The Communion of Saints ' is a Doctrine specifi- 
cally stated in what is termed the Apostles' Creed ; 
and though not introduced until the latter part of the 
Fifth Century, it has always been received as taught 
in God's Holy Word. What is implied in this doc- 
trine can only be deduced in its fulness and details 
from the teaching of the Bible and the interpretation 
of the Church. Bp. Pearson, in his great work on the 
Creed, thus speaks: 'Indeed the Communion of 
Saints in the Church of Christ with those who are 
departed, is demonstrated by their Communion with 
the Saints alive. For if I have Communion with a 
Saint of God as such while he liveth here, I must still 



Louis Sandford Schuyler, 127 

have Communion with him when he is departed hence ; 
because the foundation of that Communion can not 
be removed by death. The Mystical Union between 
Christ and His Church, the spiritual conjunction of 
the members to the Head, is the true foundation of 
that common union, which one member had with 
another, all the members living and increasing by the 
same influence which they receive from Him. But 
death which is nothing else but the separation of the 
soul from the body maketh no separation in the Mys- 
tical Union, no breach of the Spiritual conjunction; 
and consequently there must continue the same com- 
munion, because there remaineth the same foundation.' 
St. Paul, in writing to the Galatians, says, 'There 
is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor 
free, there is neither male nor female, for ye are all one 
in Christ Jesus.' We are 'baptized by one Spirit 
into one Body ' — and that Body, as you know. Breth- 
ren, is the Church of Christ, and that Church is the 
same, whether tossed upon the waves of this trouble- 
some world, or at anchor in the haven of Eternal Rest. 

"And St. Paul in illustrating the intimacy of the 
relation between husband and wife, has given us still 
more clear and explicit definitions of the intimacy of 
the relation which subsists between Christ and His 
children through His Church, when He says, ' For no 
man ever yet hated his own flesh, but nourisheth and 
cherisheth it, even as the Lord the Church : for we 
are members of His Body, of His Flesh and of His 
bones.' There can be no stronger expressions by 
which to illustrate our union with Christ the Head; 
and through Him, of our union with one another. 

"But the question here arises — Can there be any 
expression of this Communion between the Saints on 
earth and the Faithful Departed in their Home of 



128 A Memorial of 

Rest and Felicity. Bp. Pearson remarks — ' That we 
communicate with them, in hope of that happiness 
which they actually enjoy, is evident \ that we have 
the Spirit of God given us as an earnest and so a 
part of their felicity is certain. But what they do in 
Heaven in relation to us on earth particularly consid- 
ered j or what we ought to perform in reference to 
them in Heaven beside a reverential respect and study 
of imitation is not revealed to us in the Scriptures.' 

"And yet, Brethren, there are, it seems to me, inti- 
mations and legitimate deductions, which justify the 
entertaining and the practicing them as opinions which 
can not fail to give us comfort, and to lighten the 
heavy burden of sorrow which the bereavements of 
this life so often impose. It is generally conceded 
that death, which is but the separation of the soul 
from the body works no moral change. Men, women, 
or children do not lose thereby the characteristics of 
heart and mind which constitute their identity in this 
present state of being. They are men, and women 
and children, in all their intellectual faculties and 
moral qualities and heart affections, when disrobed of 
the material body. The body does not give shape to 
the mind, or mould the qualities of the heart. It is 
the soul which constitutes my identity ; for according 
to the teachings of physiology, I have a new body 
every few years. When, then, the soul leaves the 
body and starts on its journey to the Spirit Land, it 
goes with its present faculties and affections. 

"And if it be true, as I think will not be ques- 
tioned, that there is no change of character in the 
article of dying ; then, when the Dead in Christ are 
at rest in Paradise ; they are there with their memo- 
ries and loves ; and though their affections are pmified 
and there is no taint of carnal lust, yet, the bonds and 



Louis Sandford Schuyler. 129 

ties of a Saintly affection, are as quick and strong as 
when mingling in the intercourse of earthly friendships. 
And in this fact we have a practical illustration of 
what constitutes the Communion of Saints, or the 
ground of communication between the Saints in Para- 
dise and their brethren in the world. Now, when 
those who are bound together here by the nearest 
and dearest ties, are absent from each other; are 
separated perchance by the broad ocean, and the 
wonted Communion of Spirits is necessarily inter- 
rupted ; they are yet one in all the precious memories 
of the Past ; in bright anticipations of a speedy re- 
union, and in the burning flame of love which glows 
undiminished, despite the distance which separates 
them from each other. 

"It is true, as the achievement of Modern Science, 
the Ocean has been spanned, and from either side we 
m-ay now talk as if face to face with one another; but 
across the dark waters of Jordan there has been no 
telegraph, and yet the soul's communion is not inter- 
rupted. It is the province of Faith, grounded upon 
legitimate deductions from the Word of God, and in 
conformity with the teachings of His Holy Church, to 
beHeve that we are remembered and loved by the 
Faithful Departed in Paradise. Like the temporary 
separation on earth of those whose hearts are united 
in Christian Love, as there is no change in them in 
consequence of such separation, so, in crossing the 
narrow sea which divides this Heavenly Land from 
ours, the bonds are not sundered which link together 
the living and the dead — 

" 'And ever near us, though unseen, 
The dear immortal spirits tread ; 
For all the boundless Universe 
Is life — there are no dead.' 



130 A Memorial of 

It is said of Monica, the mother of St. Augustine, 
when she saw that her death was at hand in a strange 
country, Navigius, her other son, expressed a wish 
that she might die in her own land ; but her one care 
was that she might remain, body as well as soul in 
the Communion of Saints. * Lay this body an)rwhere,' 
said she : ' let not the care for that in any way dis- 
quiet you; this, only, I request, that you would re- 
member me at the Altar of the Lord, wherever you 
may be.' 

" While just on the verge of Eternity and about to 
be separated from all earthly intercourse, as she hoped 
to remember them, she would wish to be remembered 
by them, whenever at the Blessed Eucharist they 
should come up to sup with their Lord and share the 
Life-giving Food of His most Blessed Body and 
Blood. 

" And so, Brethren, the Church has provided that we 
should remember the Faithful Departed, whenever we 
would call to mind Her Great Head ; whenever 'with 
Angels and Archangels and all the Company of Hea- 
ven we laud and magnify His Glorious Name.' 

"Practically, we none of us appreciate this privilege 
as we ought. How many of you, and how often, 
when you come to kneel at the Chancel, where 
Brethren and Sisters beloved in the Lord once gath- 
ered ; where those nearest and dearest to you, year 
after year, knelt by your side, but are now, as we 
humbly trust, resting in Paradise — how often, as you 
wait in the presence of your Lord, do you bear them 
on your heart before Him, and seek an intercom- 
munion of the choicest blessings of His Grace ? 

"We may not doubt but that they remember us 
and pray for us ; and so it is our privilege to recall 
them to memory, and in the prayer of Holy Church 



Louis Sandford Schuyler, 131 

give utterance to our grateful longings — *And we also 
bless Thy Holy Name for all Thy Servants departed 
this life in Thy Faith and fear ; beseeching Thee to 
give us Grace so to follow their good examples, that 
with them we may be partakers of Thy Heavenly 
Kingdom.' 

"And, dear Brethren, let me say, in this age of Ma- 
terialism, in this day of the discovery of the secrets of 
Nature and of development and progress in the Arts 
and Sciences, which minister to intellectual pride, or 
physical comfort and luxuries, we need to have our 
thoughts spiritualized, and our minds directed to com- 
panionship with themes of a more ethereal nature 
than the gross occupation of mere money-getting, or 
even the higher sphere of scientific investigation. It 
is true, the contemplation of the Divine Character of 
His infinite attributes and of the marvellous economy 
of Grace in the work of human Redemption, are 
themes worthy to engage the highest powers of the 
sanctified intellect ; but we need as it were, stepping- 
stones to these heights, and we find it in the contem- 
plation of the Spirit World j and of such a nature as 
to enUst our interest and affections. It is well for us, 
while our thoughts and cares are engrossed with pro- 
viding for the family on earth and aiding in their cul- 
ture and advancement, to remember that there is 
another family in a better home in whom we have as 
deep an interest, and that as one by one, they are 
gathering together there^ they are thinking and caring 
and praying for us, and that it is our privilege to inter- 
change kindly offices with them — we are to live for 
both worlds and to bear in mind the denizens of both 
— and thus shall we be daily growing in meetness for 
*the inheritance of the Saints in Light.' * * * 
We are to remember that this present life is but as the 



132 A Memorial of 

Porchway to another, where Life in its true nobility be- 
gins ; and where alone, immortality is written, on every 
aspiration and every engagement of the soul. * * * 
"' Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about 
with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every 
weight, and the sin that doth so easily beset us, and 
let us run with patience the race that is set before us, 
looking unto Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our 
Faith.'" 

A very solemn and impressive Service was held in 
The House of Prayer in Newark, on the morning of 
Saturday, September 28th, 1878. Although eight 
o'clock, the hour appointed for the Service, was early, 
yet the Church was well filled with members of the 
regular Congi^egation and many who had come from a 
distance to show their love and reverence for him who 
had laid down his life for the brethren. 

Among the Clergy present were the ReVd Dr. Morgan 
Dix, the Rev'd Dr. Anthony Schuyler, the Revs. J. H. 
Smith, J. N. Stansbury, W. T. Webbe, T. J. Danner, 
S. P. Simpson, John Sword, G. B. Johnson, Samuel 
Hall, and John Rice. 

The Altar and Sanctuary were hung with purple. 
Upon the Re-table was a vase of white flowers. A 
number of glowing tapers illumined the Holy Place. 
The Font was filled with evergreens surmounted by a 
beautiful Cross of flowers bearing the motto — "Asleep 
in Jesus." 

At the beginning of the Service the Bishop, Clergy 
and Choir, preceded by a Cross-bearer, entered the 



Louis Sandford Schuyler. 133 

Church and moved slowly up the aisle, while the organ 
breathed soft and sweet music. After the procession 
reached the Chancel the Hymn 

" For all Thy Saints who from their labours rest" 
was sung. 

The Celebration of the Holy Communion followed, 
with the Rev. H. Goodwin, Rector of the Parish, as 
Celebrant, and the Rev'd A. L. Wood as Deacon. 

After the Creed the Rt. Rev. George F. Seymour, 
D.D., LL. D., Bishop of Springfield, delivered the 
following : 

ADDRESS. 

Dearly Beloved Brethren: — We are met to- 
gether this morning under pecuHarly solemn and touch- 
ing circumstances, to reproduce in some of its leading 
features a service identical with those which were 
almost daily held, for a time, sixteen hundred years 
ago, in a distant quarter of the globe, and by a people 
differenced from us by almost everything, save com- 
munion in the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic 
Church, of which both they and we are members, and 
by fellowship in sufferings like those which now deso- 
late our land. The Christians of North Africa were 
the victims of oft-repeated persecutions, and yielded a 
glorious testimony to their Crucified Lord in their 
noble army of Martyrs. Day by day as the malice of 
their heathen enemies decimated their numbers, the 
survivors met in the early dawn to celebrate the Holy 
Mysteries, and in sweet communion with their Lord 
to animate their courage, and sooth their sorrow by 
thanking Him for the good examples of those, their 



134 -^ Memorial of 

Brethren, who a few hours before, had poured forth 
their blood in the Amphitheatre a witness to Christ. 
When persecution ceased, pestilence filled the air with 
death, or rather pestilence stayed the hand of persecu- 
tion, and Christian and heathen alike fell beneath its 
stroke. Those whose faith sustained them before the 
Roman Praetor, and in prospect of torture, and the 
teeth of wild beasts, did not quail in the presence of 
the unseen destroyer; the Christian aroused himself 
to the urgency of the awful occasion; he was seen 
everywhere, nursing the sick, burying the dead, com- 
forting the bereaved, sheltering the helpless and the 
orphan. His sv/eet charities of care, and self-sacrifice, 
were not confined to his fellow Christians, but his love 
went out to his bitter, and relentless foes, and many a 
parched lip, that had cried, *'the Christians to the 
lions," was moistened by the hand, that was famihar 
with the Sign of the Cross, and many a fevered brow, 
that had lowered with cruel rage at the defenceless 
beUevers before the tribunal of Caesar, or amid the 
phrensied mob, was pillowed on the breast of a follower 
of Jesus Christ. Those too, who thus took their 
lives in their hands to minister to the sick, and the 
dying, were the special objects of the Church's pray- 
ers, while living, and of her loving commemoration 
when dead. Often, and often must the Christians of 
Carthage, and the neighboring towns have met, as we 
are assembled this morning, to commemorate the vir- 
tues, and thank God for the heroic courage, and self- 
sacrifice of their Brethren, who had laid down their 
lives, in ministering to the victims of the pestilence. 
St. Cyprian regards such, as worthy to be ranked with 
those, who shed their blood for Christ. Their death 
was a quasi martyrdom, and bequeathed a legacy of 
which the Church might well be proud. It is meet 



Louis Sandford Schuyler. 135 

and right that we should come together, as we have, 
this morning, to imitate the Christians of the Cyprianic 
age amid experiences very similar to our own. In these 
days we had much reason to fear that faith was grow- 
ing weak, and love was waxing cold. But pestilence 
visits our land, and the sufferings and distress of the 
fever-smitten regions call for noble endeavour; for 
generous self-sacrifice of all that men ordinarily hold 
dear, in behalf of the afflicted, and one and another 
responds to the appeal for help, and goes forth to min- 
ister to the sick, to comfort the bereaved, and celebrate 
the holy offices of religion, and in so doing, one and 
another yields up his or her life a testimony to the love 
of Christ. My heart is lifted up in gratitude to God 
for His mercy in giving us such witnesses of the power 
of the endless life, as have been afforded within the 
past few weeks in the devotion of the heroic men, 
and women, who have laboured and suffered, and in 
many instances, died, for the sake of others. I sorrow, 
as few beside can sorrow, for the Sisters departed, and 
for our Priests, who have laid down their lives in loyal, 
dutiful obedience to the Master, who called them to 
be His servants. But O I would not bring them back 
again to earth -, for with their best exertions, they could 
not, in the course of a long life, do one tithe of the 
good which they have already done, and are now doing, 
and will continue to do for you and for me and for 
this whole nation. They have left behind them a rich 
legacy, a splendid endowment. They have taught us 
the beauty and value of self-sacrifice. By sacrifice I 
mean the surrender of all that is most precious to self, 
for the good of others. To do this requires moral and 
spiritual power of the grandest kind, and when done, 
it exerts an influence upon those who witness it, which 
amounts ahnost to a fascination. In these degenerate 



136 A Memorial of 

days of self-seeking and devotion to ease and pleasure, 
the record which has been made within the past few 
weeks by brave men and women in confronting dan- 
ger, battling with infectious disease, and daring to die 
for others, comes like the breath of Paradise to brace 
us to higher and better things than we have hitherto 
known or dreamed of. Conspicuous among those who 
have thus offered themselves in this crisis of trial and 
suffering is he, whose precious memory is in the mind 
and heart of every one of us this morning, and whom 
presently, we will consciously bring before ourselves in 
thought, when we 'bless God's Holy Name for all 
His Servants, departed this Hfe in His faith and fear,' 
and again, when we blend our voices 'with Angels, and 
Archangels and with all the company of heaven,' in say- 
ing, * Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of Hosts.' Young 
in years, goodly in person, of honoured parentage, en- 
dowed with excellent natural gifts, enriched with elegant 
and liberal culture, life was before him bright with the 
promises, and the hopes with which youth is ever full. 
Yet richer gifts were his, and they called him early to 
the reward of the Saints at rest, and he was not dis- 
obedient to the divine voice. Duty, he thought, sum- 
moned him to Memphis, and he went, not hastily or 
rashly, but calmly, deliberately, and with full knowl- 
edge of the extreme peril in which he placed himself. 
What is remarkable in his case is the value which he 
set in deed as well as in word upon the mysteries of 
God, of which by a commission from on high he was 
made a steward. He did not go to Memphis to nurse 
the sick, or feed the hungry, though these things, and 
such as these, he was ready, and glad to do, but he 
went ,to minister the Word and Sacraments to those 
who prized them as he did, and to all who would re- 
ceive them. It was for this chiefly that he took his 



Louis Sandford Schuyler. 137 

life in his hand, and ventured himself in the pestilence- 
stricken city. On the banks of the Hudson, amid the 
romantic Highlands, he received the tidings, that one 
Sister was sick unto death, and that the Clergy were 
all down with the fever. The lovely scenery around 
him, we may imagine, lent its charms to hold him back 
from going to the Southern City in its agony of desola- 
tion and despair. He saw it not, or cared not, if he 
did see. The next train hurried him to the City, and 
after consultation with experienced and well-tried 
friends, he started the day following for Memphis. 
Arrested at Louisville by the telegrams of those who 
strove by the promptings of earthly love to keep him 
back, he lingered until he heard that one of the Rectors 
at Memphis was dead, and the other very ill. Then 
he could not longer stay. The sick and dying were 
without prayer, and the comfort which comes from the 
presence of the Minister of Christ; above all they 
were without the Bread of Life. He was speedily in 
Memphis, and from that hour until he breathed out 
his own precious life in the fever ward of the Hospital, 
he was instant in season out of season, by night and 
by day, in performing the holy ministries of his Sacred 
Office. Abundant were the fruits of his incessant 
labours during the few days which God granted him 
to live. He soothed and blessed the dying hours of 
Sister Constance with the Celebration of the Holy Com- 
munion, and the Commendatory Office for the depart- 
ing soul. He brought from the darkness of unbelief 
into the glorious light of Christian faith and hope on his 
death-bed a prominent infidel of the State ; he poured 
the oil of consolation into many a wounded spirit, and 
was busy, after he himself was sick, in giving his min- 
istries of counsel and spiritual help to others. It is 
necessary to nurse the sick, to feed the hungry, to 



13^ A Memorial of 

clothe the naked, to shelter the orphan. The world 
recognises these needs, and taught by Christianity, 
generous, and lavish even, has been the response which 
it has made to the demands which have come with 
pathetic voice from the South. But the Gospel, which 
has inspired this noble generosity in caring for the 
wants of the body and the natural life, makes special 
provision for the cravings of the soul, which are more 
sensitive and essential than any appetites of the flesh. 
It is to satisfy these spiritual needs that the divine 
Lord has commissioned his Priesthood to minister the 
Word and Sacraments. In seasons of health and 
prosperity we often tax our rhetoric to exalt the value 
of the offices of the Minister of Christ, and in doing 
so we are not to be censured, for either those means 
of grace are of priceless worth, or else the Ordinal is 
worse than mockery. Young Schuyler has shown us 
that our words are not mere sound, and our claims a 
pretence. Having no prior duties resting upon him 
to hold him back, he put his life in peril, and went 
down into the Valley of Death, that he might enjoy the 
privilege of ministering in holy things to those who 
else would die without the Sacraments. What a 
splendid testimony, this, to the reality of his faith in his 
own commission, and in the value of the things of 
which he was put in trust. 

" Brethren, this is the eve of the Festival of St. 
Michael and All Angels. A peculiarly fitting time it 
is to remember, as we are doing, our departed Brother 
in the Faith. Angels lead up to the Saints. Angels 
have the custody of childhood, 'their Angels,' says 
our Lord, *do always behold the face of My Father 
which is in Heaven.' They care for God's chosen 
ones all through this mortal life, for the Angels are 
sent forth to minister to the heirs of salvation. In 



Louis JSand/ord Schuyler. 139 

death the Angels carry the souls of the redeemed to 
Abraham's bosom. And in the resurrection at the 
last great day, the Angels will gather the good and 
precious seed, and store it in the eternal garner. The 
Angels lead up to the Saints, and on the threshold of 
their Festival, we are met to commemorate the love 
the devotion, the heroic faith of a Saintly Priest of 
God. You knew him well. For a time he went out 
and in among you, and his blameless walk and con- 
versation, his holy fervour, his intense zeal, gladdened 
and strengthened your hearts, and made you better 
for his presence. You have yoiur part and lot in him, 
and it is therefore right and proper that we should 
hold our service of Commemoration in this holy place. 
But now his last days, his closing hours have made him 
known, in the beauty and excellence of his character, 
to the whole Church, and the whole Church has its 
share in the legacy of his precious example. Such 
deaths as Schuyler's speak peace and love to all, draw 
men's hearts together, and silence their differences in 
the emphasis with which they proclaim the power of 
that faith, stronger even than death, which we all pro- 
fess to own. Such deaths as his enrich the world, 
they tell the busy throng that there are better things 
to live for and die for than pleasure, or gold, or the 
prizes of ambition. Such deaths as his introduce us 
to the company of the Saints, for instinctively we feel 
that when any one goes out from among us, as he did, 
it is because the divine Master would no longer allow 
him to remain in the lower room, but bade him, 'go 
up higher.' Cherish his memory, dear Brethren, as an 
inspiration to a higher and holier life, as a witness to 
the unspeakable value of God's appointed means of 
grace." 



140 A Memorial of 

The Bishop's Address was heard with profound 
emotion. At its close the Hymn, " The roseate hues 
of early dawn," was sung as an Offertorium, and the 
Divine Office proceeded. A great number of the 
faithful partook of the Sacred Mysteries. 

After all had received, the Hymn, "Jerusalem the 
Golden," was sung in place of the Gloria in Excelsis. 

Bishop Seymour gave the Benediction, and with the 
Clergy and Choir then left the Church in the order of 
entrance, singing " O, Paradise !" 

Thus ended one of the most beautiful and appro- 
priate Services ever held in The House of Prayer. 

Surely we may piously believe that he who was 
there commemorated joined his prayers with those of 
his brethren that they with him might have their "per- 
fect consummation, iand bliss, both in body and soul, 
in God's eternal and everlasting glory." 

A Memorial Celebration of the Holy Communion 
was held in the Church of S. Mary the Virgin, in New 
York, on the morning of November 5th, 1878, at 
eleven o'clock, according to formal votes taken at 
meetings of two Societies of that Congregation — " The 
S. Cecilia Society" and "The Burial Guild,"— the S. 
Cecilia Society offering its services in the musical 
part of the Celebration, and the Burial Guild ordering 

Note. — The abstract of Bp. Seymour's Address (which was 
ex tempore), is compiled from notes taken during its delivery by 
a member of the Congregation. 



Louis Sdndford Schuyler. 141 

the funeral decorations upon and before the Altar. 
The ReVd Thos. McKee Brown, Rector of the 
Parish, was Celebrant, assisted by the Rev'd McW. B. 
Noyes, Assistant Priest of the Parish. 

The following account of this Service was written 
by the Rector: — 

" There were present in the Chancel, of the Clergy, 
the Rev'd Morgan Dix, S. T. D., Rector of Trinity 
Church, the Rev'd Chas. W. Morrill, Rector of S. 
Alban's Church, the Rev'd Edw. H. Van Winkle of 
this City, and the Rev'd James C. Kerr, Assistant 
Minister of this Parish. Also, the Rev'd John W. 
Shackelford, Rector of the Church of the Redeemer, 
who preached a most eloquent eulogy of the Holy 
Dead, who laid down their lives in ministering to others 
during the terrible scourge of the yellow-fever in the 
South. The Clergy, Sisters of Mercy (S. Mary's 
Sisterhood), and their Assistants in Memphis, were in 
our minds ; and the several names of Clergymen who 
were reported to us as victims elsewhere than in 
Memphis. But preeminent in our remembrance were 
the Revs. Chas. C. Parsons and Louis S. Schuyler, 
with whose history and heroism we were most familiar. 
The Reverend Preacher, in an ex tempore Address, 
applied to us the lesson of the Life of Faith^ showing 
that this Life is one in which Almighty God asks us 
to do that which He would have us do, — not counting 
the cost, nor even minding what the results may be. 
For results are with Him, duty and faithful obedience 
with us. Results may seem inadequate to the labor 
expended and risks run, but it is altogether His work, 
and we are called upon to do simply what He directs 
in implicit faith that it is right. 



142 A Memorial of 

"The impression made upon us all — and we were a 
large and devout congregation then gathered together, 
— was most profound, and I have no doubt that every 
one spent two holy hours in that sacred time, went 
away refreshed, and felt that the prayers of the Faith- 
ful had risen to God's Throne, acceptable and blessed 
to the Living and the Dead, in union with that ador- 
able Memorial of His dear Son. I might add, that in 
the Church of S. Mary the Virgin, we had extra Low 
Celebrations on every Tuesday and Friday at 8 o'clock, 
from the middle of September until the end of October, 
in all thirteen; besides this last Celebration which was 
a High Service thus conducted by the two Guilds." 

The following abstract of his Address on this 
occasion has been kindly furnished by the Reverend 
Preacher. It is due to him to say that owing to some 
miscarriage he was first requested to preach when in 
the Sacristy, a few minutes before the Service. His 
Address, was of course entirely impromptu^ and he 
felt, at the time, was unworthy of the occasion. Being 
now requested, after a lapse of four months, to make 
notes of it from memory for publication, he knows 
that they must be very incomplete. 

Following are these notes of the Rev. J. W. Shackel- 
ford's 

ADDRESS. 

** THE UNKNOWN POWER OF HEROISM, IN THINGS SPIRITUAL." 



" * Now we see through a glass darkly, but then face to face ; 
now I know in part.' — i Cor.xiii, 12. 

" The principle of our life in this world is faith, and 
so long as we are trammelled by the flesh, it must be 



Louis Sandford Schuyler. 143 

so. It is the characteristic of Christianity that its 
followers are to take God on trust ; they are to walk 
by Faith, not by sight. Our prayers are to be offered 
because He says, * Ask and ye shall receive,' and we 
ask, not knowing how He will answer, whether 
directly or indirectly, or whether He will answer at 
all, so that we shall know that it is an answer; and 
yet we are to go on asking. We are to work, doing 
the duty before us, be it great or small, in the simple 
spirit of obedience, not murmuring if it be a small 
work, not exulting if it be a great one, or seemingly 
great j not knowing anything of results, but leaving 
them all with God. He works by human means ; He 
uses us j but He works in His own way, and we cannot 
tell how He is using us, or what the end is to be. 

" This applies to the life of the ordinary Christian 
in the world. The life of faith and trust is the only 
life which can save from despondency and bring rest 
and peace. 

" And, if this be true, my dear brethren, of the 
ordinary Christian, in how much higher a degree does 
it apply to those who are called to a closer contact 
with spiritual things, in the life of a Religious, or in the 
Priesthood. Their work must be purely a work of 
faith. They can prove at best but very little of the 
results of their labours, and yet they are to fulfil the 
appointed task as though it were a work with a 
definite visible end in sight. If we were to look at 
Christian work from a worldly point of view, as at 
something done for an end here, which was to redound 
in some way to our glory, this principle would make it 
most discouraging. But if we can put aside all per- 
sonal feeling, all thought of self, except that we are 
God's agents, it becomes a source of highest comfort 
and encouragement to us. Comfort, because we 



144 ^ Memorial of 

know the end is God's glory, and what work can be 
more exalted than that which by its faithful accom- 
plishment adds a ray to His ineffable effulgence! 
Encouragement, because no matter how the work may 
appear to us, so imperfectly done, so barren of results, 
we know that what is really accomplished is known 
oi^y to Him who is omniscient, and can be revealed 
only on the day when we shall see face to face, and 
know as we are known. 

"This thought must dignify all work done for 
Christ, and stimulate the heroic element in us, to do 
and suffer for Him and His. 

"My beloved! a short time back some devoted 
priests and holy women, moved by the love of Christ, 
and pity for His suffering children, took their lives in 
their hands, and in obedience to a bitter cry for help, 
went into the fever-stricken districts of the South to 
minister to the sick and dying. It was an act of true 
heroism, which nothing but the holiest of motives 
could have prompted. * They counted not their lives 
dear unto them,' and God accepted the sacrifice, and 
they are lying now in honoured martyr-graves. It is 
our privilege to-day to remember them before God's 
holy altar, and to pray, ' Grant them eternal rest, and 
let perpetual light shine upon them.' 

" But what shall we say of the work accomplished 
by this rare and marvellous heroism ? ' Now we know 
in part.' A wave of sympathy swept over the Church, 
when the last blessing was pronounced, and these de- 
voted ones had gone on their mission of love, and per- 
haps, as many felt at that time, gone to receive the 
martyr's crown. The ripple of this wave was felt be- 
yond the Church's pale, and we dare not doubt that 
such complete self-abnegation, must in its measure 
arrest the world, and convince it of the reality of our 
holy Faith. Such examples cannot be lost. 



Louts Sandford Schuyler. 145 

"But at best we know only in part. *We see 
through a glass darkly.' The real effect of such a 
work we cannot know. It extends into the realm of 
things spiritual, and can never be fully known while 
we walk by Faith. Rest assured the work has not been 
in vain ; no tears, no prayers, no service of sympathy 
there has been lost. The widening circle of such 
loving sacrifice extends into the infinitude of God's 
presence, and will only be known in that day * when 
He maketh up His jewels.' " 

The music of this service was — 
Marche Funebre, - - - . - - Chopin. 
Processional. 

"When our heads are bowed with woe." 

Kyrie Eleison, - - - - Verdi's Requiem. 

Dies Irse, . . - . Mozarfs Requiem. 

Offertory, - - . . Inflammatus. 

(From Rossini's Stabat Mater.) 
Sanctus, ) ^^^.^ , „ 

Benedicts, ]• - - - " W^lcoxs Requum. 

Agnus Dei, . - - - Mozart s Requiem. 

Libera Me, - . - . VerdHs Requiem. 

" I heard a voice from heaven," - - Jackson. 

Recessional, - - - - " <^, Paradise / " 

Funeral March, - - - - Beethoven. 



The list of official actions concerning Louis' memory 
is probably incomplete. The following records are 
accessible to the Editor. 



1878.) 



14^ A Memoriat of 

" Parish of the House of Prayer 
" Newark, N. J. 
"September 20th, a. d. 1878 

** To the Rev, Montgomery Schuyler^ D. Z?., St. LouiSy 

Mo.: — 

" Rev. and Dear Sir, — When it was known that it 
had pleased Almighty God to take out of this world 
the faithful soul of your son, the Rev. Louis Sandford 
Schuyler, lately ministering in The House of Prayer, 
the Authorities of that Church, being convened, di- 
rected us to address to you a letter in their behalf, and 
in behalf of the whole Parish, setting forth the love 
and honour in which your son was held among us when 
living, and the extraordinary mingling of pride and 
grief with which we contemplate his valiant death. 

" We are bidden to cause a copy of this letter to be 
recorded upon the minutes of the Vestry, in lasting 
memorial, and to be printed in the public journals as 
a necessary tribute to the most exalted virtue. 

" Your son's ministry in our Parish through the last 
Summer, in the temporary absence of the Rector, was 
full of unsparing labour and generous devotion. 

" In all holy offices he was constant. His work among 
the sick, the poor, and the afflicted was unceasing and 
full of Divine comfort. No duty was ever left unper- 
formed, no cry of distress ever unheeded by him ; — 
no pains unsoothed which he had power to allay ; no 
griefs unstayed, nor penitents unshriven. 

" He went about doing good. His beautiful and 
gracious life was a humble imitation of Jesus Christ. 
He taught us by example the Divine precept, " love 
is the fulfiUing of the law." Now he has perfectly 
wrought out the Divine ideal and authoritative defini- 
tion of Love, — * Greater love hath no man than this, 



Louis Sandford Schuyler. 147 

that a man lay down his life for his friends.' May he 
rest in peace, and perpetual light shine upon him ! 

" Sir, we cannot approach you with ordinary terms of 
condolence. The grief and loss are uncommon, but 
the assuagement and consolation are uncommon also, 
and it is impossible for us to treat as a mere affliction 
the issue of that splendid courage and high devotion 
which have made your son's life and death memorable 
and illustrious. We pray God to have you in His 
holy keeping. 

" We are, reverend and dear sir, 
" your most obedient, 

" most humble servants, 
" J. E. Learned, 
" J. L. Crockett, 
" Wardens of the Parish of The House of Prayer." 



} 



** Christ Church Rectory, 
"81, Congress Street, 
"Newark, N. J., Sept. 25, 1878. 

" Reverend and Dear Doctor : — At a meeting of 
St. John's Union, held in Christ Church Rooms, last 
night, I was authorized to send to you the following 
minute. 

" We, as Churchmen of Newark, venture to express 
our heartfelt sympathy with you, to assure you of the 
high esteem in which we hold the memory of your son, 
and to say that his heroic conduct will continue to 
live among us in Holy Influences through all time. 

" It was also resolved that a representation of S. J. 
U. attend the Memorial Services at The House of 
Prayer, on Saturday morning next. May I not add 
that while this whole community mourns with you in 



14^ ^ Memoriat of 

your passing sorrow, it rejoices with you in giving a 
son, whose name and services will have an unbounded 
effect in this Church, so that we may almost say, that 
Schuyler has only begun to live and work. 

" Again with assurances of oxu: best feelings and 
holiest wishes, 

" Faithfully yours, 

" J. Nicholas Stansbury, 
" Rector of Christ Church, &c., &c. 
"The Reverend Dr. Schuyler, 

" Rector of Christ Church, 
" St. Louis." 



" Holy Innocents' Church, \ 
"Oak Hill, Sept. 24, 1878. j 

"At a large meeting of the Parish of Holy Inno- 
cents, held in the Church this day in consideration of 
the death of the Rev. Louis S. Schuyler, former Rector 
of this Parish, Messrs. G. W. Parker, John Toll, Chas. 
S. Russell and Geo. Eckels were appointed a com- 
mittee to prepare an address expressive of the sense 
of the meeting. 

"They presented the following paper, which was 
adopted, ordered to be spread upon the Records of the 
Church, to be published in The Church News, to be 
properly engrossed, framed and placed in the Church, 
and a copy to be sent to the family of the deceased : 

"IN MEMORIAM. 

" rev. LOUIS S. SCHUYLER. 

"Louis S. Schuyler was bom March 2, 1852. He 
received his education at Hobart College, and was 
ordained to the Diaconate Sept. 21, 1874, in Christ 



Louis Sandford Schuyler. 149 

Church, St. Louis, taking charge of Holy Innocents' 
Parish, Oak Hill, Sept. 29th of the same year. In 
character and disposition he was gentle, faithful and 
sincere, having cheerfulness without levity, and dignity 
without coldness. He had a kindly word and greeting 
for all his people. He was modest and retiring, not 
at all self-asserting, but was self-sacrificing in the 
highest degree, and untiring in his efforts to do good. 
Religion was a passion with him, and his whole soul 
was absorbed in the duties of his Priestly office. In 
sickness, sorrow and distress he responded without 
delay to every call, and became the faithful watcher, 
the kind adviser and sympathetic friend. 

" While in charge of the Parish he was, on the 5th 
of March, 1876, advanced to the Priesthood, and his 
happiness seemed complete when authority was given 
him to consecrate the sacred elements which it was 
his privilege to administer to his beloved people, and 
to partake with them in the Holy Communion. 

" He loved his people and was universally beloved 
by them. He left this Parish a year ago in obedience 
to what he deemed a duty, and went to England for 
preparation, intending to devote his life to missionary 
work. His health faiUng, he returned to this country 
and was associate minister at Holy Innocents' Church, 
Hoboken, New Jersey, when the cry for ministerial 
help from stricken Memphis reached his ears. 

" No clergyman was there to perform the Offices of 
the Church, all either being sick or having fallen. 
Without hesitation, although he must have believed 
from his physical susceptibility to malarious disease 
that escape for him was impossible, he hastened to the 
plague-stricken city and deliberately laid down his life 
in the execution of his duty. No more heroic death 
has ever been recorded. 



150 A Memorial of 

** Just one week ago to-day he entered into rest in 
perfect consciousness and resignation, sending at the 
last moment loving messages to his friends. 

" His memory will ever be fresh in this Parish, and 
will be associated with those of the Saints and Martyrs 
of the Church. 

** Edward Mead, 
" Chairman of the Parish Meeting. 

" G. W. Parker, 
" Secretary of the Parish Meeting." 



At a regular meeting of the Vestry of the Church of 
The Holy Innocents, Oak Hill, Diocese of Missouri, 
held on the 3rd day of February, A. D. 1879, the fol- 
lowing Preamble and Resolutions were unanimously 
adopted : — 

" Whereas, an elegantly wrought banner has, through 
the hands of the Rev. Dr. M. Schuyler, Rector of 
Christ Church, been presented to this Church by Miss 
Larrabee, of Chicago, as a Memorial of the Rev. 
Louis Sandford Schuyler, deceased, late Rector of this 
Parish, therefore, be it 

" Resolved, That we gratefully accept the same, ap- 
preciating its artistic skill and beauty, but in a greater 
degree the delicate remembrance of one who was so 
much esteemed, while with us, and lamented, now 
that he has been taken from us. 

*■*" Resolved, That the same be cherished by us and 
displayed in or near the Chancel on all occasions of 
the Celebration of the Holy Communion, and on all 
Saints' Days. 

''Resolved, That the Clerk of this Vestry be re- 
quested to enter these Resolutions upon the Minutes, 



Louis Sandford Schuyler. 151 

and forward a copy thereof to Miss Larrabee with 
assurances of our highest regard. 
" A true copy of the Minutes. 

** (Signed) John Oxnam, 

"Clerk." 



Extract from Proceedings of th£ Joint Convocations 
of Newark and Jersey City. 

HoBOKEN, N. J., December i6th, 1878. 

" Whereas, We, the Clergy and Laity of the Convo- 
cations of Newark and Jersey City,- assembled in joint 
meeting, in the City of Hoboken, N. J., Dec. loth, 
1878, hold in reverent and grateful memory, C. C. 
Parsons and L. S. Schuyler, (formerly Priests of 
this Diocese) who counted not their lives dear unto 
themselves, but at the call of their Master, did their 
duty so nobly and heroically during the late visitation 
of yellow-fever in the City of Memphis, and have 
left us an example of faithfulness unto death, which 
we pray that we may have grace to follow ; therefore 

^'-Resolved, That we communicate our warmest 
sympathy to the family and friends of the deceased. 

''''Resolved, That a committee, consisting of our 
Deans, two Clerical and one Lay members of these 
Convocations be requested to solicit subscriptions for 
*the Charles Carroll Parsons Scholarship,' to be 
founded at * The University of the South.' in memory 
of that heroic Priest of God, who gave his life to the 
Master's work, in the plague-stricken City of Memphis. 

" Resolved, That we request the authorities of the 
* University of the South' to add the name of the 
Reverend Louis S. Schuyler to the same founda- 
tion." 



152 A Memorial of 

On the day of his death the body of Louis was 
buried by Dr. Dalzell in the Cemetery of Elmwood. 
He rests there, by the side of his gallant fellow-soldier 
of the Cross, the Rev. Charles Carroll Parsons, (late 
Colonel Parsons, U. S. A.) 

Between the sleeping forms of these heroes the 
people of Memphis have reared a Monument of pure 
white Italian marble, in grateful memory. 

Upon a solid base a broad plinth sustains a pedestal 
of three members, which bears a plain Latin Cross 
about nine feet high. On opposite sides of the plinth 
are engraved deeply the names "Parsons" and 
'' Schuyler." 

Upon the four sides of the die are the following in- 
scriptions : — 

" i{f Charles Carroll Parsons, ifi 

Priest. 

Died of Yellow-fever, 

Sept. 6, 1878." 



** ^ Louis Sandford Schuyler, ^ 

Priest. 

Died of Yellow-fever, 

Sept. 17, 1878." 



** i|i Lovely and pleasant in their lives, in death 
they are not divided, ifi " 



'* ^ Greater love hath no man than this, that a 
man lay down his life for his friends, ifi " 



Louis Sandford Schuyler. 153 

And underneath, around the base of the pedestal, 
is carved the ancient prayer — the *' sincere desire" — 
of the Church for her Holy Dead. — 

" ifi Requiem ceter7iam dona eis, Domine ; et lux 
perpetua luceat eis. ^ " 



With these solemn mortuary records ends the 
earthly history of Louis Sandford Schuyler. 

— Necesse est tanquam immaturam mortem ejus 
defleam : si tamenfas est autflere^ automnino mortem 
vocare^ qua tantijuvenis mortalitas magis finita quam 
vita est. Vivit enim, vivetque semper^ atque etiam 
latius in memoria hominum et sermone versabitur^ 
postquam ab oculis recessit. 



THE END. 




p '• 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




